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Spaces to open Ontario, Quebec co-working sites at Zibi

5 years ago

Spaces will celebrate a Canadian first when it opens two co-working sites at the Zibi development in Ottawa and Gatineau. The sites, comprising 55,000 square feet, will face each other across the provincial border in buildings connected by a second-storey walkway.

The First Meadowvale Centre Phase 2 office tower in Mississauga is being sold to True North Commercial REIT for $87.5 million. The property is the second purchased by True North (TNT.UN-T) to deploy equity from its recent $80.5-million issue of units.

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Telecom giant Telus and Lower Mainland developer Polygon have launched duelling lawsuits over a $175.5-million Burnaby real estate deal that fell apart last month.  The property is a 14-acre piece of land at 7000 Lougheed Hwy. beside the Saputo Dairy plant.

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The days of commercial real estate space being simply that – space – are gone according to a panel of experts at an ULI event in Vancouver. One of the hottest trends in real estate is “real estate as a service”.

Centurion REIT

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The cornucopia of consumption that is Black Friday still matters, but its relevance is fading as the shopping season now stretches from Halloween to Christmas Eve. Toss in that government retail sales data may contradict what’s happening in stores.

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PayPal Canada today unveiled its inaugural Social Commerce Trend Study, which reveals that almost half of Canadian social media users are currently shopping on social media (47%) and nearly 40 per cent plan to shop on social media this holiday season.

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Sixty per cent of Canadian merchants have experienced showrooming, with one in three reporting a strong impact on sales, according to a survey by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. Showrooming is highest for shoppers age 18 to 34, at 75 per cent.

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Canadian retailers are falling behind when it comes to innovation. Consumer behaviours have changed and retailers have to recognize that it’s no longer business as usual, said Craig Patterson, a Canadian retail consultant and editor-in-chief of Retail Insider.

Matrix360

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Civil servants are up in arms about the infestations. PSAC has called on the government to check all federal offices for bedbugs. The government has advertised a $400,000 pest control contract to clear bedbugs from employees’ cars and homes.

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Halifax regional council narrowly voted in favour of redevelopment plans for the Halifax Forum. The proposal from HRM staff involves saving the facade of the 92-year-old heritage building. The existing rink would be replaced with a new 3,000-seat one.

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The next month will be critical in planning and procuring Toronto’s new Ontario Line as proponents hustle to undertake a market sounding of industry stakeholders ahead of a rapidly approaching deadline for issuance of an RFQ for the project.

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Canada’s mayors are urging Prime Minister Trudeau to get “creative” in funding infrastructure projects when provincial governments are reluctant to spend. The impact of increased federal spending on infrastructure is being partly offset by provincial governments scaling back their plans.

Stewart Title

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Dream Global REIT (DRG-UN-T) has received the regulatory approvals for the closing in which affiliates of real estate funds managed by Blackstone Group will acquire all of the REIT’s subsidiaries and assets. Dream anticipates closing will occur on Dec. 10.

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Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), announced the acquisition of a 24.9 per cent stake in the public-private partnership (PPP) contract of Sydney Metro, Australia’s biggest public transport project. The total value of the transaction is $150 million.

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Bayerische Versorgungskammer (BVK) is Germany’s largest pension fund and it is growing. Its most recent transaction was an investment in the Edmonton City Centre alongside LaSalle Investment Management’s core Canadian property fund and two developers.

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There are signs the inaugural era of relentless Chinese urbanization has drawn to a close. The populations of roughly 28 per cent of some 3,330 urban areas in China fell between 2013 and 2016 according to an analysis released by Chinese researchers.

Global Property Market 2019

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Mont-Tremblant’s village posted the highest median price appreciation in Canada’s winter recreational markets for both single-family homes and condominiums during the past year, rising 37.3 per cent and 37.8 per cent year-over-year to $583,500 and $232,500 respectively, according to Royal LePage.

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Roomvu, a Vancouver-based real estate marketing and analytics firm, has calculated the average price per square foot for each floor level per neighbourhood and by what percentage it changes as you go up.

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Vancouver city council voted Wednesday to increase the empty homes tax by 25 per cent in 2020. That will raise the levy from one per cent of a home’s assessed value to 1.25 per cent.

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L.A.’s congestion-ridden multi-lane freeways have become the poster child of traffic problems in North America. A more significant concern is housing affordability, which affects no fewer than 1.9 million households in L.A. County.

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