Celestica sells 60.5-acre Toronto campus

RENX  Commercial  •  Condominiums, Office, Land  •  Toronto / GTA

The sale of the 60.5-acre Toronto Celestica campus property “is a once-in-a-decade type of deal” says the broker who helped facilitate the transaction. That’s a good thing because it took more than a decade from the company’s first overtures to sell, to actually close the acquisition.

JLL to acquire HFF for $2 billion

Commercial  •  CP Executive  •  RENX

JLL, a global real estate and investment management firm, has agreed to acquire HFF, a Dallas-based brokerage firm. The transaction, which is slated to close in Q3, is valued at roughly $2 billion.

Intergulf proposes four towers for Burquitlam, B.C.

Residential  •  Tri-City News

Intergulf Development Group has revealed plans for a four-tower project with nearly 1,200 units at one of Burquitlam’s busiest corners. The initial proposal is for three condo towers of 40, 33 and 26 storeys containing 842 units and a 30-storey tower with 293 market-rental apartments.

The People Space › People Space: New board chair at Invesque, hires at Colliers, AY…

Don Wilcox: Managing Editor

Health and wellness at Evolv1 tracked by eleven-x

Commercial  •  Sustainable Biz Canada

Evolv1, Canada’s first multi-tenant building to earn the Canada Green Building Council Zero Carbon Building – Design certification, is part of a new initiative to track the health and wellness relationship between buildings and people.

Reichmann eyes 18-storey Sparks St. retirement home

Residential  •  Ottawa Business Journal

Toronto-based Reichmann Seniors Housing Development Corp. has announced plans to build an 18-storey retirement residence on a prime piece of downtown real estate owned by the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa. The residence is expected to include 152 rental units.

Spanish chain eyes Vancouver for second Canadian hotel

Commercial  •  Globe and Mail (Subscription required)

Spanish chain Riu Hotels & Resorts is plotting more growth in Canada, after agreeing to spend about $125-million building a new luxury hotel in downtown Toronto. For its second Canadian location, the family-run company is eyeing Vancouver.

Holloway sells Timmins single-tenant property

Commercial  •  Canada Newswire  •  RENX

Holloway Lodging Corp. (HLC-T) announced it has sold its single-tenant property located in Timmins, Ont. The sale price for the property was $1,725,000 representing a cap rate of approximately 8.1 per cent.

Space is scarce in Okanagan’s cannabis boom

Commercial  •  Globe and Mail  •  Business In Vancouver

With Health Canada regulations and licensing on cannabis still in flux, a shortage of viable leased space in B.C.’s Okanagan, long one of the country’s top cannabis-producing regions, is prompting ventures to spend investment capital on new and refitted buildings.

Regina’s Globe Theatre undergoing $29M facelift

Commercial  •  Regina Leader-Post

The roof of downtown Regina’s Globe Theatre has been leaking for 30 years. With no freight elevator, all of the lumber and steel needed to build sets is carried up flights of stairs.

Construction software firm Bridgit raises $6.2M

Commercial  •  Globe and Mail

Bridgit Inc. began with what founders Mallorie Brodie and Lauren Lake call “crane hunting” – scouring London, Ont., for construction sites, looking for problems to solve. They found a few. And they’ve raised another $6.2 million to keep solving them.

John Lingwood, the Waterloo Region’s prolific Modernist

Commercial  •  Globe and Mail (Subscription required)

The first time I found architect John E. Lingwood, I wasn’t looking for him. It was a photograph of a striking church in Images of Progress 1946-1996: Modern Architecture in Waterloo Region, a small publication in 1996 by the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery.

CPPIB mulls opening first China office

Commercial  •  Bloomberg  •  Bloomberg  •  IPE Real Assets

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, which manages around $368.5 billion, is considering opening its first office in China as it seeks greater exposure to the world’s second-largest economy. CPPIB could open an office in Beijing as soon as next year.

Blackstone-Embassy REIT game-changer for India

Commercial  •  livemint

The (IPO) of Blackstone Group-sponsored Embassy Office Parks REIT opened Monday, in a game-changer for India’s real estate sector and a leap forward for the New York-based investor which opened its India real estate division in 2007.

Dream Industrial added to S&P/TSX Composite Index

Commercial  •  Globe Newswire  •  RENX

Effective after the close of trading on March 15, Dream Industrial REIT (DIR-UN-T) was included in the S&P/TSX Composite Index as part of its quarterly rebalancing. Concurrently, the REIT was also added to the S&P/TSX Capped REIT Index.

REIT financial results:

Commercial  • 

Partners REIT, (PAR-UN-T), Globe Newswire

Laneway housing begins to take shape in Toronto

Residential  •  Toronto Star  •  Toronto Star

When Leslie Doyle and her husband, Jackson Stone, set out to design what will be one of the first newly permitted laneway houses in Toronto, they knew they wanted it to be green and somewhat absorbent, particularly the roof.

B.C. housing starts are down: Altus

Residential  •  Vancouver Sun

A new report from the research firm Altus Group reinforces expectations B.C. housing construction, particularly in Metro Vancouver, will decline under the influences of mortgage stress tests, new tax measures and a slowing economy.

Canadians hope for bigger first-time buyer tax credit in budget

Residential  •  Newinhomes.com  •  Toronto Star

Housing affordability – or the lack thereof – has been one of the biggest financial challenges facing Canadians in recent years. The topic is especially on point with the latest Federal Budget to be revealed on Tuesday.