Timbercreek buying Wynn family’s $1B portfolio

Timbercreek buying Wynn family’s $1B portfolio

Wynn Group of Companies, one of Toronto’s largest multi-family property owners, has agreed to sell more than $1 billion worth of assets to Timbercreek Asset Management. Sources confirmed Timbercreek, a Toronto-based asset management firm, has been in negotiations for months with the family-owned Wynn Group, which has more than 4,500 residential units and three million square feet of commercial space, according to the company’s website. 

CoStar Group – Property Biz Canada

Amazon unveils plans to expand Vancouver tech hub

Amazon (AMZN-Q) today announced plans to expand its Vancouver Tech Hub and create an additional 3,000 jobs in fields including e-commerce technology, cloud computing, and machine learning. Amazon welcomed PM Justin Trudeau to an event with its Vancouver employees, at the site of its future 416,000-square-foot Development Centre in Vancouver. Today’s announcement is the latest milestone in the company’s ongoing job creation in Canada, where it already employs more than  6,000.

Canada Newswire – Reuters

Crestpoint, partners acquire $600M worth of urban properties

Crestpoint Real Estate Investments Ltd. and its investment partners have been busy thus far in 2018, acquiring office and industrial properties worth more than $600 million in three major Canadian cities. The acquisitions in Greater Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto bring Crestpoint’s total gross asset value to approximately $3.5 billion and approximately 20 million square feet of office, industrial and retail space.

Property Biz Canada

CF plans Toronto, N.B. shopping centre redevelopments

Cadillac Fairview is embarking on two major shopping centre redevelopment projects; the restoration and expansion of 2 Queen St., West in Toronto, part of the CF Toronto Eaton Centre complex, and the creation of a TD corporate office at CF Champlain in Dieppe, N.B., near Moncton. At CF Champlain, TD will take over a former Sears Canada location which closed in January.

Property Biz Canada

DELMA Group acquires Dorval office building, land

DELMA Real Estate Corporation, a subsidiary of DELMA Group Inc., today announced the acquisition of a 56,000-square-foot six-storey office building located at 185, Dorval Avenue, in the heart of downtown Dorval, a transaction valued at $ 10.4 million. DELMA Group plans to move its head office there in July 2018. The building includes a vacant lot that will allow DELMA Real Estate Corporation to develop a new mixed commercial and multi-residential complex.

Globe Newswire

Winnipeg’s new industrial park underway

Sewer and water pipes are being installed and roads built in the first new, fully serviced industrial park constructed inside the Perimeter Highway in many years. And it helps the 89-acre Brookside Industrial Park Phase III already has an anchor tenant conditionally locked up. “We received several offers as soon as we started accepting offers,” said Heidi Spletzer of Crystal Properties, the project developer.

Winnipeg Free Press

Stability, growth predicted for London CRE

London, Ont., will see a $283 million in investment largely in industrial and commercial real estate this year, up 12.3 per cent from last year, as the city posted solid economic growth, says a commercial realty report released Thursday. CBRE, the commercial real estate firm, released its 2018 Southwestern Ontario Market Outlook report and looming investment highlighted the London-area totals, said vice-president Peter Whatmore.

London Free Press

Farm Boy’s Jeff York talks automation and real estate

Farm Boy’s co-CEO Jeff York shared some of the secrets to the company’s success with Michael LeBlanc, senior retail advisor for the Retail Council of Canada, during a keynote session at the organization’s Retail Marketing Conference in Toronto earlier this month. Here’s an edited version of their conversation:

Canadian Grocer

Ste-Catherine St. getting facelift for the 21st century: Mayor

Montreal’s iconic Ste-Catherine St. will be getting a 21st-century facelift that includes slashing the number of driving lanes and parking spaces in order to make more room for pedestrians, the city announced Thursday. The plan will reduce a 670-metre stretch of the artery from two driving lanes to one, plus a shoulder for deliveries, while increasing the width of sidewalks by 60 per cent.

Toronto Star – Montreal Gazette

Surrey’s city building plays catch-up as people move east

Michael Heeney sits in a booth in an old diner on King George Boulevard in Surrey, B.C. It’s the kind of place with a pie stand on the counter and linoleum on the floor. In his new position as president of the Surrey City Development Corp., it is where he takes visitors “from out of town” – by which he means Vancouver.

Globe and Mail (Subscription required)

Unitholder seeks to replace all Pure Multi-Family directors

The strategic review being conducted by a special committee of Pure Multi-Family REIT LP  (RUF-UN-X) – a decision prompted by a proposal from a Florida-based private apartment owner to acquire the company – has become more complicated. The Vancouver-based issuer has received a notice from unitholder K2 Principal Fund L.P. indicating it would be putting forward the names of seven people to be directors at the upcoming annual meeting.

Financial Post – Property Biz Canada

Prologis to acquire DCT Industrial for $8.4B

For Prologis Inc. (PLD-N), the world’s largest warehouse owner, the biggest challenge to growth has been acquiring land in the markets most important to its e-commerce tenants. The solution: buy a rival. The REIT agreed to acquire DCT Industrial Trust Inc. (DCT-N) for $8.4 billion in stock and assumed debt. 

Bloomberg – Reuters – CoStar Group – IPE Real Assets

Sainsbury’s to buy Asda from Walmart for $13B

Sainsbury’s has agreed to buy Walmart’s (WMT-N) U.K. unit, Asda, for  $13 billion Cdn in cash and stock in a deal that would create Britain’s largest supermarket chain and marks a profound shift in the country’s grocery market. The deal combines Britain’s second- and third-largest supermarket chains, giving the combined company 31.4 per cent of the market and putting it ahead of the current leader, Tesco, which has 27.6%.

Canadian Grocer – IPE Real Assets – Reuters

Global luxury hotel market expected to reach $115.8B by 2025

The global luxury hotel market size is expected to reach $115.80 billion US by 2025, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc., registering a 4.3% CAGR during the forecast period. The market is expected to grow significantly over the forecast period owing to increasing purchasing power of consumers and rising number of international as well as domestic tourists on business or leisure trips.

PR Newswire

How Blackstone became China’s RE connection

In February 2017, Stephen Schwarzman toasted Wang Jian, co-chairman of HNA Group, at a charity event at Manhattan’s Park Avenue Armory. Wang lauded the billionaire Schwarzman as a “god of fortune” and a man with the “key to opening up the chest of treasures.” Fourteen months later, Schwarzman and his Blackstone Group LP (BX-N) may be uniquely placed to unlock some of HNA’s real estate treasures.

Bloomberg – South China Morning Post

Market Trends and Research

T-Mobile/Sprint could reshuffle millions of square feet of CRE space

The leaders of T-Mobile US and Sprint Corp. are likely to reshuffle their retail line-ups and cell tower networks while keeping headquarters operations in both Seattle and Kansas City should they win approval for a $26.5-billion merger announced Sunday. The new company, to be called T-Mobile, would be headquartered in Bellevue, Wash., with a second headquarters in Overland Park, Kan, according to the companies.

CoStar Group

Large corporations turn to co-working providers

Co-working options – offered by shared office space providers such as WeWork, Axis and Quest – are on the rise in Miami. The Miami Downtown Development Authority (DDA) reports at least 30 co-working spaces have popped up in downtown Miami alone and have attracted a number of large corporations as tenants. Twitter, Spotify, TripAdvisor, Microsoft and Wix have all taken shared office space there in the last few years.

CoStar Group – Ottawa Business Journal – Globe and Mail – Chain Store Age

Rich turn to crowdfunding for properties

Real estate fund managers Michael Episcope and David Scherer had Georgia on their minds—specifically, Atlanta. The city, part of the third-largest-gaining metro area in the U.S. last year, according to Census Bureau data, was only getting hotter. So when the co-founders of real estate investment company Origin Investments spotted an opportunity last year to purchase a 125-unit apartment complex, they jumped on it.

Bloomberg

Real Estate Companies

Brookfield nears $10B final close for global fund

Fundraising for Brookfield Asset Management’s (BAM-A-T) $10-billion US global opportunity fund is 90 per cent complete and is expected to reach a final close next month, according to sources that track capital raising. Brookfield did not respond to a request for comment. Filings with the SEC in March revealed Brookfield Strategic Real Estate Partners III had raised $9.04 billion.

IPE Real Assets

Marriott Vacations Worldwide to acquire ILG

Marriott Vacations Worldwide Corporation (VAC-N) will buy fellow timeshare company ILG (ILG-Q) in a cash-and-stock deal worth $4.7 billion, to expand in Mexico and other holiday hotspots, the companies said on Monday. The combined company will together own licenses to seven upscale brands including Marriott Vacation Club, the Ritz-Carlton Destination Club and the Sheraton Vacation Club.

Reuters – PR Newswire

ProMedica, Welltower acquire HCR/Quality Care for $2.2B

Health care provider ProMedica Health and health care property owner Welltower have jumped into salvage the operations of bankrupt nursing home operator HCR ManorCare. As part of the agreement, the buyers will also acquire the properties of HCR’s largest landlord, Quality Care Properties. The total transaction is valued at about $2.2 billion at $20.75 per share in an all-cash transaction. 

CoStar Group

Real Estate Investment Trusts

To be or not to be a U.S. REIT?

Should the reliable REIT abandon its tax-free structure to meet pressing capital needs, using the new U.S. tax law as a stepping stone? Or hang on to a status that gives it access to its very own set of investors? Third Avenue Real Estate Value Fund portfolio managers Jason Wolf and Ryan Dobratz argue some U.S. REITs should consider converting to a regular corporation, known as a C corp.

Bloomberg

Retail

Solutions offered to prevent empty Vancouver storefronts

Restaurateur Pepe Barajas’ experience with the City of Vancouver highlights the need for streamlined City Hall processes to approve tenant-improvement permits. It also illustrates why so many arterial streets in the city are peppered with for-lease signs in storefront windows or retail units papered up to show that new tenants plan to move in.

Business In Vancouver

Roots announces opening of two Washington locations

Roots (ROOT-T), an iconic lifestyle brand with a rich Canadian heritage, today announced it is opening two U.S. retail locations in the Greater Washington, D.C., area in August 2018. Roots is bringing its premium lifestyle brand (consisting of apparel, leather goods, footwear and accessories) to Washington D.C. by opening a 3,550-square-foot store on M Street, the pinnacle of high street retail located in the Georgetown neighbourhood.

Canada Newswire

Bed-in-a-box maker Casper coming to Canada

Casper helped to define a new business model for online mattress retail with the debut and meteoric rise of its foam bed-in-a-box four years ago. Now, like Amazon.com Inc., Warby Parker and Frank and Oak, the New York-based company is looking to further cement its place in the market with bricks and mortar stores — a strategy that seems antithetical to the model it helped create, but one CEO Philip Krim believes is important to reach even more new customers.

Financial Post

Restaurants and Eateries

McDonald’s global same-restaurant sales tops estimates

McDonald’s Corp (MCD-N) reported a better-than-expected rise in quarterly sales at its restaurants on Monday, helped by strong international sales, especially in the U.K. and Germany, sending its shares up 3.6 per cent. Global sales at stores open at least 13 months rose 5.5 per vent, easily topping the average analyst estimate of 3.94 per cent, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Reuters – Toronto Star

New Development

Feds prequalify construction consortiums for P3 archives

The federal government is inviting three teams of architects, financiers and contractors to formally submit bids to construct a new archival facility that’s expected to remain standing for the next 500 years. Last week, Public Services and Procurement Canada released the names of the companies it’s prequalified to move onto the next stage of the P3 procurement process.

Ottawa Business Journal

Sports Venues

Watch Wrigley Field’s most recent renovations

Chicago’s Wrigley Field, the second-oldest ballpark in Major League Baseball, has been undergoing a series of renovations in recent years to update and improve the fan and player experiences. The most recent round of updates took place between October 2017 and April 2018.

Building Design & Construction – Building Design & Construction

Other

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