Skyline Group of Companies already manages about 20 per cent of the rental apartment buildings in Owen Sound, Ont., and that number will increase after the recent groundbreaking for a 267-unit complex at 3195 E. Bayshore Rd.

Owen Sound is a city of more than 20,000 people in Grey County, located at the mouths of the Pottawatomi and Sydenham rivers on an inlet of Georgian Bay. It has high rental housing demand and currently has just over 2,000 units and a vacancy rate of 1.7 per cent.

“Skyline currently has investments in Owen Sound totalling $98 million and this development represents another $100 million investment,” Greg Jones, the president of Skyline’s development arm, SkyDev, told RENX.

The 38-acre site of a former RCA factory on East Bayshore Road was acquired three years ago from a numbered company for an undisclosed price. 

“What drew us to the site was being on the waterfront and having sunset views looking west over the bay,” Jones said. “And there are a lot of mature adults looking for a maintenance-free, turnkey lifestyle in the area.”

What East Bayshore will offer

East Bayshore, as the development will be called, will include three 89-unit residential buildings and a 3,600-square-foot clubhouse with amenities including a fitness centre and a party room. Outdoor amenities will include dog runs, fire pits and connections to existing recreational trail systems.

Seventy-six per cent of the units will have two bedrooms while the remainder will have one. The average size is 900 square feet for the two-bedroom units and 700 square feet for the one-bedrooms.

The open-concept units will feature nine-foot ceilings, stainless steel appliances, quartz countertops and high-quality finishes.

East Bayshore is located less than a 10-minute drive to downtown Owen Sound. It’s close to public transit and adjacent to the Kiwanis Soccer Complex.

Construction of the three residential buildings will be staggered by four to six months and each one is expected to take 18 months to complete. The buildings could potentially become part of Skyline Apartment REIT, but no decisions have been made as of yet.

Skyline has full site-plan and zoning approvals in place to construct a total of eight buildings with 712 units on the site. Future buildings will be added based on absorption of earlier properties.

Still to come from Skyline and SkyDev

Guelph, Ont.-based Skyline is a capital management company that acquires, develops and manages real estate properties and renewable infrastructure assets, and offers them as private alternative investment products. It managed more than $9 billion in assets across its real estate and renewable infrastructure platforms as of June 30.

Skydev has 1,540 residential rental units under construction and another 3,000 in its development pipeline. 

Construction is continuing on the first phase of Sky Towers, a master-planned development that will ultimately bring 928 rental units to Barrie, Ont. SkyTowers’ first phase at 22 and 26 Grove St. W. is comprised of 25- and 27-storey buildings providing a combined 541 units, including 32 affordable units.

The towers are being built on high ground at the city's former YMCA property, which overlooks Highway 400 just south of the Bayfield St. offramp.

Construction is up to the 14th floor of the first tower and Jones is hopeful the first two buildings will be completely formed by the end of the year. Completion is slated for 2027.

SkyDev broke ground late last year on Spencer Place, a 199-unit apartment building at 157 Queensway East in Simcoe, Ont. Leasing should begin in the spring.

Leasing should also begin in the spring for Sienna Avenue, a two-building, 164-unit apartment complex that backs on to conservation lands and Potter’s Creek at 201-205 Sienna Ave. in Belleville, Ont.

Residences at Silvercreek — a three-building, four-storey complex with 187 units on Prince of Wales Drive in Collingwood, Ont. — is expected to be completed in the spring.

Future apartment construction

“We've got more developments in the pipeline that we're looking to launch, and they’re all rental,” Jones said. “The condominium market’s not super strong at the moment, but we were doing rentals before it was cool.”

Governmental policy changes at different levels have been favourable for purpose-built rental development and SkyDev is looking to take advantage of whatever it can to build more. 

“We're hoping to continue to launch new construction projects and have $1 billion of construction underway,” Jones said, adding that the value of the projects currently under construction is about half that.