To ensure delivery, please add newsletter@bisnow.com to your address book, learn how
March 6, 2014
Cisco Taps Toronto As Global Hub
Toronto will be one of four new global hubs for innovation, Cisco Systems announced yesterday, representing an investment of up to $100M over 10 years. (Cisco's payin' for dinner!)
The Innovation Centre will occupy 15k SF of space in Oxford Properties' new RBC Waterpark Place, scheduled for completion spring 2015 (the office tower will also be the home of Cisco's new Canadian HQ). Songdo, South Korea, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and a German city (yet to be named) are the other three cities. (No, we're family with those cities, so we'll need to share our clothes.) The centre will help startups, established companies and industries tap into Cisco technologies and Smart+Connected solutions. “Cisco aims to help create new markets and solutions and establish a hotbed for experimentation,” Cisco Canada president Nitin Kawale says.
Oxford's EVP Michael Kitt says the announcement melds nicely with their strategy of “offering next generation office environments.” Cisco is a thought-leader in smart buildings, Michael adds, the type of “forward-thinking tenant” that continues to help Oxford stay informed in this area.
Restaurant Leasing On The Rise
These are busy times on the restaurant leasing front, according to Regent Street Commercial Corp principal Vanessa Oliver. (Which is good news for our taste buds in the coming months.) Her office is currently working on two restaurant deals in Liberty Village, one in the south core and potentially two more in the financial core, details that she says she can't reveal. Other name-brand deals they've done recently: Oliver & Bonacini at 33 Yonge, Cactus Club at First Canadian Place, Origin Restaurant at King & Church, iQ Food Co at TD Centre and Brookfield Place (image), and the Pizzeria Libretto restaurants under construction both at 155 University and 545 King St W.
Vanessa says that unlike so many other retail tenants that are squeezing in size due to multi-channel retailing online, restaurants are more in demand than ever, and will not shrink in size, “unless someone figures out how to eat a steak on Amazon.” More and more office and residential density in the core and downtown west is helping the cause as well. “As office cubicles and condos become smaller, the more people go out to eat,” she says.
Power Lunch: Giancarlo's
For Bank of America Merrill Lynch SVP Carmin Di Fiore, any closing should be celebrated at Giancarlo's in Little Italy. The restaurant has a “sensible and humble atmosphere and an eclectic crowd that doesn't take itself too seriously,” Carmin says. Then there's the menu—food and flavours that have withstood the test of time, he says. “God bless the Romans!”
Milton and Halton Hills Muscles Up
A rise in spec construction has brought some breathing room to a tight industrial market in Milton and Halton Hills, according to a study released by Avison Young. The increased presence of multinationals and large domestic retailers—and the strengthening of the e-commerce sector in correlation to their need for large distribution centres—has been the impetus behind the surge in development activity. Milton, for example, has 19M SF of inventory and a 4.2% availability rate, which is expected to increase with Triovest's new 406K SF facility at Chisholm Dr and Cooper Construction's 303k SF facility on Peddie Rd adds new space to the market.
According to the report, Halton Hills' availability rate has dropped to 3.9% (5.7M SF of inventory). Developers are increasingly facing an ultra-competitive environment for land, which has been driving up the cost for industrial development, resulting in narrow yields for new product, notes Avison Young principal Mark Sevenpifer. Along with the additional 1M SF of new product in Milton, another 105k SF of product is coming online this spring with KingSett Capital's expansion at 35 Brownridge Road (image) in Halton Hills. If the current steady rate of absorption remains constant, the market will see a moderate increase in availability rates as the new product enters the market.
Leasing Activity Takes A Dip
The Toronto Real Estate Board reports a 17% decrease in leased commercial space in February, in comparison to February 2013. The industrial market segment--which accounts for over three quarters of the square footage leased--drove the dip (24.5% just for industrial). There were fewer lease agreements for larger industrial space this time out, TREB commercial committee chair Cynthia Lai says, adding that leading activity can be “volatile” on a month-to-month basis. The overall average lease rate for industrial properties increased slightly compared to the previous year--$5.26/SF net, up from $5.20 in February 2013. Average lease rates were also up for the commercial/retail and office segments of the market.
New Bisnow Education Video!
By popular demand, we've just released a second video we did with Peter Linneman, widely considered the top professor of commercial real estate in the US. While our first video was more elementary, this is more advanced, called "Real Estate Finance," i.e., on how you get money to do deals. But it's purposely very simple to understand. It's 77 minutes long, broken into 5-minute increments, so you can watch or listen as you are waiting in line, or at the gym, or lying in bed. (To each his own.) Click here for the new video and here for the old video.
Starting to think more and more that golf season will never arrive. Snow until May. Three months to dry out the fairways. Tee off – in September! How do you get your golf fix during these long, cold months? Mark.keast@bisnow.com
