Choice unveils plans for multiple high-rise towers in TO

Choice unveils plans for multiple high-rise towers in TO

Bloor and Dundas is undergoing a big change, which developers say could bring thousands of residential housing units, jobs, park space, and a new modernized school. Choice Properties REIT (CHP-UN-T) revealed new renderings for its massive, 10-acre development at 2280 Dundas Street W. on Thursday. The company’s plan calls for multiple high-rise towers that offer at least 50 per cent rental housing, retail, office space and plenty of parks.

Toronto Star – Toronto Star – Globe and Mail (Subscription required)

Aurora building 1.2 million-square-foot pot operation

Aurora Cannabis Inc.  (ACB-T) says it is acquiring about 29 hectares of land in Medicine Hat, Alta., to build a new high-tech cannabis facility. A memorandum of understanding with the city includes a prospective 10-year, 42 megawatt energy supply agreement. Aurora says the new facility, to be named “Aurora Sun,” will be the size of 21 football fields and 50 per cent larger than its “Aurora Sky” operation at Edmonton International Airport.

Winnipeg Free Press – Canada Newswire

Sandpiper pursues bold path with board shake-ups

In the less-than-two-years since Sandpiper Group launched, the Vancouver-based investment company has been forging a bold path initiating board shake-ups. It is developing a portfolio built on shrewd public and private property investments, while also finding ways to influence and insert board members into investment partners which are not meeting Sandpiper’s expectations.

Property Biz Canada

Royal Vista centre enters suburban Calgary office market

The suburban Calgary office environment continues to face stiff vacancy challenges, but entrepreneurs are finding niches to bring new product to market. “There’s been a lot of reshuffling in the market and that continues to be the trend,” said Chris Rundle, a leasing associate with Barclay Street Real Estate. “We do see the northwest and projects like (Royal Vista Professional Centre II) in demand.”

Property Biz Canada

UBC pushes for Millennium Line extension to campus

The University of British Columbia has opened the door to providing funding for an extension of the Millennium Line all the way to its Point Grey campus. UBC’s board of governors passed a motion on Thursday endorsing talks with other levels of government to extend the rapid transit line, and to explore contributing to its cost, provided it doesn’t come from academic funds.

CBC – Global News

STM launches housing project near Métro station

Montreal Gazette

Approved zoning enhances value of GTA development land

Multi-family residential developers can expect to continue to pay a hefty premium when acquiring land which already has approved zoning in place, according to a new report. Residential real estate advisory firm Bullpen Research & Consulting Inc. and land-use planning and project management firm Batory Management teamed up to review and provide projections on more than 40 Greater Toronto Area (GTA) high-density land transactions in the first quarter.

Property Biz Canada

Fairfax agrees to buy Toys R Us Canada

Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. (FFH-T) signed an agreement to buy the Canadian unit of Toys “R” Us  for about $300 million, a source said. The stalking horse bid allows other potential buyers to enter competing proposals by Monday. Fairfax would then have the option of either increasing its offer or walking away. Fairfax would receive a break fee of about four per cent if another bidder is chosen.

Financial Post – Globe and Mail (Subscription required)

$30M in annual revenue expected from Woodbine expansion

The proposed casino expansion at Woodbine Racetrack could bring in roughly $30 million in annual revenue for the city and provide hundreds of jobs to local workers, but critics aren’t sure the project is a safe bet. A recent report from interim city manager Giuliana Carbone notes that in 2022, when the facility is fully built-out, the city can expect to receive $26 to $31 million a year.

CBC

Coalition urges Airbnb to ban Toronto ‘ghost hotels’

The lobby group that led the charge against Airbnb in Toronto says the short-term rental website should agree to voluntarily implement the city’s proposed new rules, even while they are hung up in legal challenges. The new regulations were supposed to come into effect June 1 and would ban anyone from renting out a home, or part of a home, that was not their principal residence for less than 28 days. 

Globe and Mail

Crombie’s Belmont Market taking shape in B.C.

The first phase of the $93-million Belmont Market is on track to open this fall at a former high school site in Langford, B.C. Thrifty Foods’ new parking lot is completely paved, showing the “on-site work is well underway,” said Trevor Lee, senior vice-president of Western Canada for developer Crombie REIT (CRR-UN-T).

Victoria Times Colonist – Property Biz Canada

Ryerson University expanding to Brampton

Ryerson University is coming to Brampton. The university will be expanding outside of downtown Toronto for the first time when it announced on Thursday it would be building a campus in Brampton. “In expanding to Brampton, Ryerson University will provide much-needed university programs to students in one of the fastest-growing and most diverse communities in Canada,” said Mohamed Lachemi, president and vice-chancellor of Ryerson University, in a release. 

Toronto Star – Global News

Kraft Heinz moving operations to Milton

Kraft Heinz (KHC-Q) will soon close its distribution centre in Vaudreuil-Dorion, putting close to 100 employees out of work. The food producer recently announced its plans to move its operations to a new and bigger 775,000-square-foot distribution centre in Milton, Ont. A company spokesman said the move was made as “an effort to better serve our customers.” The Vaudreuil-Dorion distribution centre, located on Marie-Curie St., is approximately 500,000 square feet.

Montreal Gazette

Campbell Soup chooses Mississauga for Canadian HQ

Campbell Soup Company (CPB-N) says its new Canadian headquarters will open in Mississauga It will be located in the Airport Corporate Centre region, which is a 15-minute minute drive from its soon-to-be-closed Etobicoke manufacturing plant. The company decided to shutter the 87-year-old plant in January and cut 380 jobs, citing complications with retrofitting such an old building as the reason for the closure.

Winnipeg Free Press

Plans for Chicago’s second-tallest tower unveiled

The city known as the birthplace of the skyscraper has plans to build a new 1,422-foot-tall addition to its already impressive high-rise collection. On Monday, developers Golub & Co. and CIM Group unveiled plans to build a mixed-use tower as part of the $1 billion Tribune Tower redevelopment. The skyscraper, as planned, would become the second-tallest in Chicago, standing 29 feet short of the Willis Tower.

Building Design & Construction – CoStar Group

Featured Column

Choosing a CRE Tech Platform: Find a solution you’ll stick with

Today’s CRE Tech space hardly resembles the world in which my co-founders and I launched VTS in 2012. Back then, only a few startups were knocking on doors and begging people to look at mocked-up versions of their offerings. Today, thousands of tech solutions are on the market. There’s growing awareness about the benefits these solutions provide, including accelerated deal conversion and reduced downtime and enhanced tenant experience.

CRE Tech: Riding the Digital Wave

Market Trends and Research

Largest banks casting wary eye on heated U.S. CRE

Despite record liquidity, demand for commercial real estate loans softened in recent months, leaving eager lenders chasing fewer borrowers. As a result, competition among lenders has ratcheted up noticeably with loan prices compressing. In fact, deal pricing and structures have gotten so competitive, many of the nation’s banks, including its 25 largest cumulatively, are starting to back off from commercial real estate lending.

CoStar Group

A bubble in CRE may be about to pop

Commercial real estate loans at banks in the U.S. have reached a record $4.3 trillion. This amount is now 11% higher than it had been during the crazy peak of the prior commercial real estate bubble before it imploded during the financial crisis. In CRE, leverage is everything. Banks, particularly smaller regional banks that specialize in it, are on the hook.

Business Insider

Real Estate Companies

Tricon completes $314M single-family rental securitization

Tricon Capital Group Inc. (TCN-T), a principal investor and asset manager focused on the residential real estate industry, announced Tricon American Homes has completed its previously-announced single-family rental securitization transaction. TAH received net proceeds from the sale of six classes of fixed-rate certificates that represent beneficial ownership interests in a loan secured by 2,509 of TAH’s single-family rental properties.  The certificates have a face amount of $314 million.

Canada Newswire – Property Biz Canada

Real Estate Investment Trusts

Macerich CEO to retire at year’s end

Longtime Macerich Co. (MAC-N) chairman/CEO Arthur Coppola Thursday announced plans to retire from the shopping mall REIT he has led for 25 years. Coppola will also step down from his position as chairman of the REIT’s board and will not seek re-election as a director at Macerich’s annual shareholder meeting. His retirement is effective Dec. 31. Coppola was a founding partner of the original iteration of Macerich Group in 1976.

CoStar Group

Kushners/Vornado Manhattan office tower suffers big loss

A Manhattan office tower co-owned by Kushner Cos. and Vornado Realty Trust (VNO-N) had its worst year since the two firms became partners in the building in 2011. The property, 666 Fifth Ave., lost $25 million in 2017, after accounting for debt payments, as net income fell and interest on loans increased, records filed to investors show. That compares with a loss of $14.5 million in the previous calendar year.

Bloomberg – Globe and Mail

Legal Corner

Chinese gangs laundering drug money through Vancouver RE

Criminal syndicates that control chemical factories in China’s booming Guangdong province are shipping narcotics, including fentanyl, to Vancouver, washing the drug sales in British Columbia’s casinos and high-priced real estate, and transferring laundered funds back to Chinese factories to repeat this deadly trade cycle, a Global News investigation shows.

Global News – Global News

Retail

Décathlon set to open inaugural Canadian store

Canada Newswire

Canada’s retail sales plunge

Canadian retail sales during the crucial holiday shopping season were far lower than previously projected as consumers appeared to pull back on spending. Statistics Canada has released revised estimates for its retail-trade figures — and they are considerably weaker when compared to the initial readings published by the federal agency.

Montreal Gazette

Restaurants and Eateries

Civil war erupts between Tim Hortons franchisee factions

Tim Hortons’ (QSR-T) elected franchisee board has struck back at a vocal group of franchisees who formed last year to oppose the practices of their new corporate parent, calling the groups’ complaints to the federal government earlier this month the “final straw” and warning that a flood of adverse media stories are turning consumers against the brand.

Financial Post – Winnipeg Free Press

New Development

Capital Developments back to Bloor-Dufferin drawing board

Torontonians near Bloor Street West and Dufferin Street say they’re worried about the future of a community hub they were promised as  part of a mega-project being planned for their neighbourhood. The site, which is almost three hectares, is currently home to three school buildings. Once the city approves redevelopment, the site will see several condo towers rise, as well new shops, parks and a new high school.

CBC

Bitcoin farm proposed for former B.C. sawmill site

A northern B.C. town could soon help one company satisfy the growing appetite for bitcoins. MiningSky is a blockchain infrastructure company looking to build its own cryptocurrency farm in Houston, B.C. The facility would host computers that mine bitcoins by solving complicated math problems. The Pacific Northwest is attracting the attention of cryptocurrency companies for a number of reasons. 

CBC

Infrastructure

Construction begins on Nanaimo Airport’s $15-million expansion

Nanaimo’s $15-million airport expansion officially kicked off Tuesday in a ground-breaking ceremony to start construction of a 14,000-square-foot terminal addition. The investment comes as Nanaimo Airport marks eight consecutive years of record-setting passenger growth. About 390,000 passengers are anticipated this year.

Victoria Times Colonist

Other

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