Building Canada’s tallest condos as Toronto sales slump

Building Canada’s tallest condos as Toronto sales slump

Great Gulf Group is well aware it’s forging ahead with one of Canada’s ritziest condo projects in a market that appears to be cooling. In fact it’s bracing for the possibility. The developer plans to construct the country’s tallest residential buildings — two towers as high as 92 stories plus commercial space, designed by Frank Gehry, and projected to cost more than C$1 billion.

Bloomberg

Strata condo windups ‘creative’ Vancouver property investments

The Metro Vancouver commercial property investment market is showing signs of slowing, according to a 2018 first quarter report by Altus Group.  Overall investment volumes across all asset classes fell by 22 per cent in the first quarter of this year when compared to same period last year.

Property Biz Canada

Goodman, CPPIB to invest in Brazilian industrial property

Goodman Group announced the establishment of the Goodman Brazil Logistics Partnership to invest in prime logistics and industrial assets in the key gateway cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.  The US$700 million fund allows Goodman to invest alongside its global capital partners, which include Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB).

Canada Newswire

Valens GroWorks finalizes greenhouse expansion plans

Valens Farms,  a subsidiary of Valens GroWorks Corp., a multi-licensed, vertically integrated provider of cannabis products and services utilizing proprietary extraction processes, is pleased to provide an update on its state-of-the-art, purpose-built 400,000 square foot  expandable cannabis cultivation and production facility, currently under development.

Canada Newswire

Summit Industrial Income REIT signs new data centre lease

Summit Industrial Income REIT (SMU.UN-T) says the tenant at its Data Centre One has exercised its option to expand into the remaining 60,000 square feet of the 120,000-square-foot building on the same terms and conditions under its existing lease. Summit owns a 50 per cent interest in DC1, located in the Barker Business Park Digital Campus in Richmond Hill, Ontario, in partnership with Urbacon Montreal Limited Partnership.

Canada Newswire

Bitcoin, cannabis boost Montreal’s industrial rental market

Bitcoin “miners” and legal cannabis growers, attracted by cheap electricity, are helping to turn Montreal’s industrial real estate market into one of the tightest in the country. The availability rate was 3.2 per cent during the first quarter of 2018, according to Cushman & Wakefield down from 6.7 per cent during the first quarter of 2017.

Montreal Gazette

Dymon takes innovative storage concepts into GTA

Dymon Storage has a simple strategy, though the execution can be quite complex; bring storage closer to the people who need it, but do it in increasingly innovative ways. The Ottawa-based company currently has eight locations, but as it expands from its roots into the Greater Toronto Area, it will open three more before the end of the year and another six in 2019.

Property Biz Canada

Ottawa landlords woo tech tenants with flexibility

Shorter lease terms, bicycle parking and an occasional willingness to allow canine tenants are some of the ways downtown Ottawa landlords are marketing buildings to the growing number of tech firms looking to expand or relocate in the core, experts say. The growth of urban tech tenants is reshaping the commercial real estate market in Ottawa’s central business district.

Ottawa Business Journal

Canadian workplaces unready for legal pot: report

Most Canadian workplaces are simply not ready for the impact of legalized recreational cannabis, according to a report by the Conference Board of Canada. The board, which conducts research on behalf a variety of organizations from both the private and public sectors, released its report, titled Blazing the Trail: What the Legalization of Cannabis Means for Canadian Employers.

CBC – CBC

East Van development cancelled over dispute with city

Nancy Keough of The Kettle Society and Daniel Boffo of Boffo Properties say the Kettle Boffo Project proposed for the northwest corner of Commercial Drive and Venables Street is no longer economically feasible because of cash demands made by the City of Vancouver.

CBC

Florida officials approve plan to build largest U.S. mall

While store closures are accelerating and malls struggle malls, county commissioners in Florida have approved a plan to build what would be the largest mall in the U.S. The American Dream Miami would also be the most expensive mall ever built, according to Canadian developer Triple Five Worldwide Group of Cos. The 6.2-million-square-foot retail and entertainment complex would cost an estimated $4 billion.

Toronto Star

Amazon ‘really likes’ two Chicago sites: Mayor Emanuel

It’s still unclear if Chicago will be selected in the second round of Amazon HQ2 hopefuls, but Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Monday that it’s his understanding that Amazon officials “really like” two city sites. The mayor, fearful of violating confidentiality with Amazon, cautiously responded to a question about whether the Old Post Office was now off Amazon’s contenders list.

CoStar Group

Ford to redevelop derelict Detroit train station for tech workers

Ford Motor Co. executives on Tuesday said the automaker will renovate and revamp18-story Michigan Central Station, Detroit’s infamous blighted landmark, turning it into offices for up to 5,000 tech workers and software engineers focused on self driving vehicles and ancillary technologies and services.

CBC

Brookfield acquires $1.9-billion stake in U.S. apartment portfolio

In what is likely to be one of the largest multifamily deals of the year, a unit of Brookfield Asset Management (BAM-A-T) has acquired a 49 per cent stake in a U.S. portfolio of apartment buildings owned by Carmel Partners for $914 million, which values the full portfolio at $1.865 billion.

CoStar Group

Future fund, PSP mull DP World Australia stake sale

Australia’s Future Fund and Canada’s Public Sector Pension Investment Board are poised to exit their investment in port terminals operator DP World Australia, according to industry sources. It is believed Future Fund has a 20 per cent stake in DP World Australia and PSP has a 25 per cent stake in the Australian subsidiary of the Dubai-based global marine group, DP World.

IPE Real Estate

Featured Column

Three ways to tick off your landlord

During my 10 years in the commercial real estate industry, I’ve seen it all and very little surprises me. But, every now and then I come across another doozy that is worth sharing! I’ve compiled a list of new and interesting ways in which tenants have chosen to compromise their relationship with their landlord.

Read more

Market Trends and Research

Fiera’s Kanata buy pushes Ottawa Q1 investments up 13%: CBRE

Ottawa’s commercial real estate investment market jumped off to a hot start in the first quarter of the year, with $379 million in local assets changing hands, according to real estate services firm CBRE. That’s up 13 per cent over the first quarter of 2017 and 23 per cent higher than the five-year average, CBRE added.

Ottawa Business Journal

Real Estate Investment Trusts

Plaza Retail REIT has raised its payout for 15 years

On the surface, Plaza Retail REIT (PLZ-UN-T) appears to have the odds stacked against it. It’s focused on bricks-and-mortar retail, which is supposedly getting trashed by e-commerce. Its properties are in smaller markets – not the big urban centres where larger REITs see the best prospects for growth.

Globe and Mail

Automotive Properties REIT closes $18-million Calgary acquisition

Automotive Properties REIT (APR.UN-T) closed the previously-announced acquisition of the Country Hills Volkswagen dealership property in Calgary. The property includes a newly-built 34,646 square-foot, full-service Volkswagen dealership on approximately 4.7 acres at 11380 Stonehill Drive NE, a busy commercial corridor just north of the Calgary International Airport.

Canada Newswire – Canada Newswire

Cannabis industry news

CannaRoyalty debentures to support building seven U.S. facilities

CannaRoyalty Corp. has retained Canaccord Genuity Corp. as lead agent to undertake a fully marketed private placement of unsecured convertible debentures  on a commercially reasonable efforts basis to raise gross proceeds of up to CAD$30 million, with the terms and conditions of the Convertible Debentures to be determined in the context of the market.

Canada Newswire

Lessons learned from Colorado’s cannabis experience

Colorado became, in 2014, the first jurisdiction in the world to allow the legal sale of cannabis for recreational use. Uruguay had technically been the first to legislate away prohibition. But Colorado had gone beyond mere legalization, creating a fully regulated retail system, monitored, tested and taxed by the state. When cannabis stores open across Canada later this year it will look very different than in Colorado.

Financial Post

New Development

Moncton’s vision for downtown: More streets, parking and people

Two more streets, hundreds of new parking spaces, thousands of more residents. It’s the future envisioned in Moncton’s new downtown development plan presented to city council this week. The Downtown Core Community Improvement Plan imagines a denser urban centre.

CBC

Renovation and Restoration

Executive committee endorses security upgrades for Toronto city hall

Getting into city hall may soon get more difficult following a vote by Mayor John Tory’s executive committee to endorse airport-style security measures, including bag checks, and metal detectors for the council chamber. Right now, city hall operates under an open door policy.

CBC

Infrastructure

Governments commit $540M for flood channels in Manitoba

The federal and provincial governments are sharing the $540-million cost to build two permanent flood mitigation channels at Lake St. Martin and Lake Manitoba that have been years in the making.The governments announced the funding arrangement Monday morning at a news conference in St. Laurent, on the shore of Lake Manitoba.

CBC

First Nations receives funds to work on all-season road assessment

The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency has allocated $489,288.70 to be divided between eight Indigenous governments to participate in the assessment process for a proposed road connecting Manto Sipi Cree Nation (Gods River), Bunibonibee Cree Nation (Oxford House) and God’s Lake First Nation.

CBC

Montreal JV to design Arctic research station

When the Montreal-based joint venture of EVOQ Architecture and NFOE was retained to design a research station in the Arctic, its mandate included integrating the facility into the local Inuit community. Located in the hamlet of Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, the Canadian High Arctic Research Station (CHARS) brings science and technology and traditional Inuit knowledge under one roof.

Construct Canada

Technology

Yardi clients receive Realcomm Digie Awards for Tech Innovation

Several Yardi® clients earned Realcomm and IBCon Digie Awards, among the highest recognition in the commercial real estate industry, at the recent Realcomm/IBcon conferences in Las Vegas. Morguard, CBRE, QuadReal Property Group, Link REIT and BNY Mellon Real Estate Fund Services received Realcomm Digie Awards for best use of automation.

Canada Newswire

Other

Vancouver gives two public plazas Indigenous names

A pair of public plazas in Vancouver were given new Indigenous names during a formal naming ceremony on Monday morning. The new names are for the Vancouver Art Gallery north plaza and the Queen Elizabeth Theatre Plaza part of the gallery’s recently renovated north plaza.

Vancouver Sun