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RENX’s Top-30 Canadian CRE stories of 2020

3 years ago

RENX   •   • 

The COVID-19 pandemic is the “story” of 2020, but within the commercial real estate industry there is a much deeper thread to the year. A story of resilience, adaptation, soldiering on in the face of conditions few would’ve imagined 12 months ago.

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Starlight Investments and KingSett Capital have acquired Northview Apartment REIT (NVU-UN-T) for $4.9B. It’s the largest multiresidential transaction in Canadian history.

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Vancouver-based Concord Pacific purchased one of the most coveted development sites in Vancouver, St. Paul’s Hospital on Burrard Street, for nearly $1B. The 6.6-acre site had been on the market for a year.

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Oxford Properties Group and AIMCo have unveiled the largest mixed-use downtown development in Canadian history, the 130-acre Square One District. The project is named after the shopping centre at the heart of the 18-million-square-foot Mississauga development.

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Oxford Properties Group and CT REIT plan to redevelop the 9.2-acre Canada Square with a three-million-square-foot mixed-use development at Yonge and Eglinton in Toronto. The proposal includes five towers with over 650,000 square feet of office space, retail and 2,700 housing units.

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Groupe Petra and Groupe MACH partnered to purchase one of Montreal’s best-known office buildings, 1100 René-Lévesque West. The class-A, 27-storey tower holds LEED Platinum and BOMA Platinum certifications.

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Dream Office REIT (D-UN-T) and Humbold Properties unveiled plans in early December to construct a 79-storey mixed-use residential, office and retail tower at 212 King St. W. at the edge of downtown Toronto’s Financial District.

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Broccolini COO Anthony Broccolini says Ottawa is poised to become a major retail distribution hub as online shopping surges and e-commerce giants such as Amazon continue to grow. Broccolini is building a 2.8M square-foot, multilevel distribution centre in the city.

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Brookfield Business Partners (BBU-UN-T) will purchase all outstanding shares of Genworth MI Canada, the country’s largest private sector residential mortgage insurer, in a deal which values the firm at about $3.8 billion. The company’s shareholders approved the deal on Dec. 22.

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Sandpiper Group succeeded in its efforts to oust senior managers and longtime trustees of Artis REIT (AX-UN-T). Co-founder and CEO Armin Martins and CFO Jim Green will retire; board chairman Edward Warkentin and three other trustees all resigned their positions.

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San Francisco-based Airbnb (ABNB-Q) made a triumphant debut on the public market on Dec. 10. Its shares closed at US$144.71, more than double the US$68 price Airbnb had set. The closing price gave the company a valuation of over US$100 billion.

Yardi Marketplace

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Calgary’s ongoing economic challenges haven’t deterred plans for the $2.5B Alpine Park development by Dream Unlimited. “We started assembling this development in 1997 and today, 23 years later, we are proud to commence development of this exceptional project,” said Dream’s Michael Cooper.

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Rester Management of Montreal has a binding agreement to buy ELAD Group’s interest in ELAD Canada Realty for $508 million. The Toronto-based firm is a Canadian subsidiary of controlling shareholder ELAD Group, which is controlled by Israeli billionaire Yitzhak Tshuva.

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The more virtual conferences George Przybylowski organized, the more advantages he saw for gathering thousands of Canadian commercial real estate executives. But it was a massive challenge to suddenly pivot a series of live national conferences to virtual events.

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Sidewalk Labs packed up and left Toronto in May after a long, fraught and ultimately failed attempt to build a sensor-laden high-tech waterfront neighbourhood. The Manhattan-based sister company of Google had a rocky road for its proposed showcase community.

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Google (GOOGL-Q) has signed a long-term lease for all 18 floors and 400,000 square feet of office space at the new 65 King East tower in Toronto. It also announced new offices in Allied Properties REIT buildings in Montreal and Waterloo Region.

Marcus & Millichap

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Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec is preparing to sell a third of the shopping centres it owns in its home market as e-commerce finally starts to bite the country’s brick-and-mortar retailers.

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Cadillac Fairview will build a new downtown of about five million square feet in Montreal’s West Island, on land west of its existing CF Fairview Pointe Claire mall in Pointe-Claire.

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WalMart (WMT-N) has announced a fifth distribution centre in the GTA as part of a five-year, $3.5-billion commitment to its Canadian operations. It joins a 300,000-square-foot facility being built in Surrey and upgrades to a distribution centre in Cornwall, Ont.

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Empire (EMP-A-T), the owner of the Sobeys, FreshCo and Farm Boy banners, plans to spend $2 billion during the next three years to grow its store network, build new e-commerce fulfillment centres and “win” the battle for online grocery market share.

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Choice Properties REIT (CHP-UN-T) resumed investment activity in a major way during Q3, inking agreements to acquire or expand its interest in more than a half dozen properties, and to divest three portfolios. In total, its transactions amount to $675 million.

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The grooming process is complete. Jonathan Gitlin will succeed Ed Sonshine as CEO of RioCan REIT (REI-UN-T) at the end of March, the trust announced. Gitlin was named president and COO in 2019, when Sonshine announced his intention to retire.

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The Beach Towers apartment complex overlooking Vancouver’s English Bay has sold for a record single-asset, multifamily price of $305 million according to Goodman Commercial Inc., which facilitated the transaction. The four, 24-storey towers are on a 2.66-acre waterfront property.

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DIALOG, a leading global design firm based in Toronto, has developed a prototype design that could see hybrid mass timber towers sprouting in major cities and climbing as high as 105 storeys. The patent-pending design also creates a zero-carbon tower.

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The world’s largest co-working office space provider has filed for creditor protection for many of its offices in Canada, exposing a weakness in the shared office business model. Swiss-based IWG PLC operates under the Regus and Spaces brands.

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Eventful year in the casino sector. Apollo Global Management (APO-N) bid to acquire Great Canadian Gaming Corp. (GC-T), then sweetened the offer to get shareholder approval. Earlier, New York’s Leisure Acquisition Corp. (LACQ-Q) shelved a bid for Gateway Casinos & Entertainment.

Centurion REIT

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It’s situation that has likely never been experienced in Calgary’s downtown office market. When energy company Nexen moved its operations to the Bow Tower last fall, the energy company left its former headquarters completely empty – the 801 Seventh Building.

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After cutting its distribution in half, and paring the value of its assets by $1.3 billion, H&R REIT (HR-UN-T) CEO Tom Hofstedter believes it is positioned for almost any eventuality created by the COVID-19 pandemic and the crash in energy prices.

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QuadReal Property Group will expand its partnership to acquire a 50% interest in CA Ventures’ US$4-billion student living platform. Chicago-based CA Ventures owns and operates 60 student housing properties, comprising more than 35,000 beds, in college communities across the United States.

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CPP Investments is partnering with Los Angeles-based Hudson Pacific Properties Inc. (HPP-N) to purchase a “trophy” 36-storey Seattle office tower for about $810 million Cdn, the investors announced.

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CBRE Caledon Capital Management Inc. has acquired a significant minority stake in a new platform with 12 Vantage Data Centers operating assets. CBRE Caledon completed its investment alongside an investor group led by Colony Capital Inc.

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