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Dramatic revival in Ottawa's industrial real estate sector – Real Estate News EXchange

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A tract of vacant land, owned by the National Capital Commission in east Ottawa, is being turned into a new industrial business park by local developer Avenue31. (Courtesy Avenue31)

For decades, Ottawa and the National Capital Region were afterthoughts in the industrial real estate market. No more.

A dramatic change in thinking about commerce and supply chains has thrust the city of just over a million people onto the radars of companies which – quite justifiably considering conditions at the time – would barely have given it a passing glance five or 10 years ago.

Though it’s still a relatively small player with an inventory of just over 46 million square feet, Ottawa is becoming a significant distribution hub for e-commerce giant Amazon. Major developers and owners such as Broccolini, PROREIT, Manulife Investment Management, newcomer Avenue31 and others are becoming more and more active.

“While Ottawa certainly isn’t as large as some of the other markets, we are in lockstep with every other market in Canada,” said Warren Wilkinson, the managing director of Colliers’ Ottawa office, while introducing an industrial panel at the recent virtual Ottawa Real Estate Forum.

Availability is at 2.3 per cent and declining. Leasing rates are among the highest in Canada at $11.50 per square foot (up six per cent year-over-year) and rising.

Major new industrial developments

There’s well over three million square feet of new space currently under construction (much of it in a new 2.88-million-square-foot Amazon warehouse) and several other major projects in pre-development. 

Just east of the city, in Casselman, Ford just announced a long-term lease for a 531,000-square-foot distribution centre being built by Montreal’s RoseFellow and Bertone Development Corp. to service Eastern Canada.

All this is occurring in a market which has traditionally been dominated by small- and medium-bay product for firms servicing local clients only. Only 23 per cent of the city’s existing industrial inventory involves spaces larger than 50,000 square feet.

“Quite frankly for groups looking to occupy or purchase space in Ottawa, larger than 50,000 square feet, the opportunity is limited,” Wilkinson noted. Actually, it’s almost non-existent.

So the market is racing to catch up with two suddenly red-hot trends – the e-commerce explosion and the realization that international supply chains are vulnerable to events such as pandemics and other potential disruptions.

Supply chain woes add to industrial demands

“Why is there so much development going on?” Wilkinson asked, then proceeded to answer his own question.

“The one real reason is, I think during the pandemic what we’ve all noticed is what real demand looks like. We also had some champions in the industry step forward and start building new industrial supply.”

Glen D’Silva, managing director, portfolio manager for Manulife Investment Management, took that a step further, noting companies are now facing serious product and raw materials delays.

“If they are supplying a manufacturer, they can’t afford to have delays,” he said. “The just-in-time delivery system has failed us. Everybody is going to want those components closer to home.

“I think you’re going to see a lot more manufacturing of those components within North America so you can have more distribution of those within North America and not from overseas.

“We appeared not to learn from SARS and didn’t have supplies on hand when COVID hit, and I don’t think any government is going to let this happen again. People will remember this very clearly.”

Hidden advantage for Ottawa industrial

Industrial and warehousing expansion is happening across Canada, but Ottawa has one advantage which, perhaps, had not been readily apparent in the past.

“Ottawa has the greatest access to people within one working day,” said Ryan Semple, director of business development for Avenue31.

The Ottawa-base firm has amassed several development sites in the area and is constructing Phase 1 of a new industrial park on land leased from the federal National Capital Commission along Highway 417 in the East End.

It has plans to build almost two million square feet of industrial during the next few years.

Semple cited a 2020 CBRE Ottawa Industrial Update report which examined how many people live within one day’s driving access from major Canadian cities (roughly 400 kilometres in one direction). Ottawa is within one day of about 15 million people – a larger reach than either Montreal or Toronto.

“So businesses that want to provide product to their consumers within one day are now looking at Ottawa as a place to relocate or consolidate,” he said.

A concept plan submitted by Broccolini calls for a building of up to 700,000 square feet, and almost 100 feet in height, in a south Ottawa location along Highway 416. (Courtesy Broccolini)

Broccolini is currently leading that charge. The Montreal-based firm built a million-square-foot East End distribution centre for Amazon two years ago and is developing the massive five-level Amazon facility in South-End Barrhaven.

Among its other holdings is a plot of land just outside the urban boundary where it plans a 700,000-square-foot distribution centre which would tower almost 100 feet high.

Challenges to find entitled, serviced land

The firm’s vice-president of real estate, James Beach, noted that despite these huge projects there are significant development challenges in the city, both inside and outside the Capital Greenbelt.

“Challenges within the Greenbelt (are) land availability, there is not a lot of it available,” Beach said. “If land is available, use of the entitlement process to render it appropriate for these new-style, e-commerce developments can be onerous and sometimes a very long process.

“Outside the urban boundary? Lots of land, but we kind of come back to the same point, zoning. Does the zoning exist? And even if it does, does the infrastructure exist to support the zoning?”

Yet the demand remains. Both for development and to acquire completed assets. Broccolini sold a 90 per cent interest in the first Amazon distribution centre to Concert.

PROREIT sees strong Ottawa industrial fundamentals

Acquisitions are where PROREIT has been active in the city. As the trust has increased its industrial portfolio weighting, it acquired three additional Ottawa properties comprising 283,000 square feet earlier this year and is looking for more.

“We’ve pivoted recently quite significantly to industrial,” said Mark O’Brien, PROREIT’s managing director of operations. He lauded the region as: “Very stable, good demographics, good household income and good population growth, so certainly it’s a market we want to grow in.”

He also said the tight vacancy is good news for firms holding existing product. The restrictions “just help our assets grow in value. 

“Take a bandwith of between four and 10 per cent annual growth on rental rates. You can close your eyes and run industrial product and get a 20 per cent cash IRR without having to do anything, and you add cap rate compression on top of that.

“I mean, you realize how many people are trying to chase these assets. It’s all to our benefit.”

Relieving these pressures can only come from one source. Semple cited the letters ASWL: “It all starts with land. 

“It all starts with shovel-ready land, It all starts with zoned land. . . . That’s going to be the biggest challenge, shovel-ready zoned land.”

Beach said there is land available, much of it controlled by government, or NGO-type agencies. However, that doesn’t mean it will be easy to build on. The South-End Ottawa airport authority property is one example.

“They have several hundred acres of industrial airside land available and relatively ready to go, however we go back to the discussion about entitlement, you go back to the discussion about servicing, transportation.

“Those lands need a little bit more work and really it will take a catalyst tenant and a large-scale development to warrant a first phase and for those infrastructure dollars to be implemented.” 

He said it will happen. The only question is, when?

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article was updated to indicate that RoseFellow and Bertone are developing the Ford facility in Casselman. RENX apologizes for the error.

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Here are some facts about British Columbia’s housing market

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Housing affordability is a key issue in the provincial election campaign in British Columbia, particularly in major centres.

Here are some statistics about housing in B.C. from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s 2024 Rental Market Report, issued in January, and the B.C. Real Estate Association’s August 2024 report.

Average residential home price in B.C.: $938,500

Average price in greater Vancouver (2024 year to date): $1,304,438

Average price in greater Victoria (2024 year to date): $979,103

Average price in the Okanagan (2024 year to date): $748,015

Average two-bedroom purpose-built rental in Vancouver: $2,181

Average two-bedroom purpose-built rental in Victoria: $1,839

Average two-bedroom purpose-built rental in Canada: $1,359

Rental vacancy rate in Vancouver: 0.9 per cent

How much more do new renters in Vancouver pay compared with renters who have occupied their home for at least a year: 27 per cent

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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B.C. voters face atmospheric river with heavy rain, high winds on election day

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VANCOUVER – Voters along the south coast of British Columbia who have not cast their ballots yet will have to contend with heavy rain and high winds from an incoming atmospheric river weather system on election day.

Environment Canada says the weather system will bring prolonged heavy rain to Metro Vancouver, the Sunshine Coast, Fraser Valley, Howe Sound, Whistler and Vancouver Island starting Friday.

The agency says strong winds with gusts up to 80 kilometres an hour will also develop on Saturday — the day thousands are expected to go to the polls across B.C. — in parts of Vancouver Island and Metro Vancouver.

Wednesday was the last day for advance voting, which started on Oct. 10.

More than 180,000 voters cast their votes Wednesday — the most ever on an advance voting day in B.C., beating the record set just days earlier on Oct. 10 of more than 170,000 votes.

Environment Canada says voters in the area of the atmospheric river can expect around 70 millimetres of precipitation generally and up to 100 millimetres along the coastal mountains, while parts of Vancouver Island could see as much as 200 millimetres of rainfall for the weekend.

An atmospheric river system in November 2021 created severe flooding and landslides that at one point severed most rail links between Vancouver’s port and the rest of Canada while inundating communities in the Fraser Valley and B.C. Interior.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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No shortage when it comes to B.C. housing policies, as Eby, Rustad offer clear choice

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British Columbia voters face no shortage of policies when it comes to tackling the province’s housing woes in the run-up to Saturday’s election, with a clear choice for the next government’s approach.

David Eby’s New Democrats say the housing market on its own will not deliver the homes people need, while B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad saysgovernment is part of the problem and B.C. needs to “unleash” the potential of the private sector.

But Andy Yan, director of the City Program at Simon Fraser University, said the “punchline” was that neither would have a hand in regulating interest rates, the “giant X-factor” in housing affordability.

“The one policy that controls it all just happens to be a policy that the province, whoever wins, has absolutely no control over,” said Yan, who made a name for himself scrutinizing B.C.’s chronic affordability problems.

Some metrics have shown those problems easing, with Eby pointing to what he said was a seven per cent drop in rent prices in Vancouver.

But Statistics Canada says 2021 census data shows that 25.5 per cent of B.C. households were paying at least 30 per cent of their income on shelter costs, the worst for any province or territory.

Yan said government had “access to a few levers” aimed at boosting housing affordability, and Eby has been pulling several.

Yet a host of other factors are at play, rates in particular, Yan said.

“This is what makes housing so frustrating, right? It takes time. It takes decades through which solutions and policies play out,” Yan said.

Rustad, meanwhile, is running on a “deregulation” platform.

He has pledged to scrap key NDP housing initiatives, including the speculation and vacancy tax, restrictions on short-term rentals,and legislation aimed at boosting small-scale density in single-family neighbourhoods.

Green Leader Sonia Furstenau, meanwhile, says “commodification” of housing by large investors is a major factor driving up costs, and her party would prioritize people most vulnerable in the housing market.

Yan said it was too soon to fully assess the impact of the NDP government’s housing measures, but there was a risk housing challenges could get worse if certain safeguards were removed, such as policies that preserve existing rental homes.

If interest rates were to drop, spurring a surge of redevelopment, Yan said the new homes with higher rents could wipe the older, cheaper units off the map.

“There is this element of change and redevelopment that needs to occur as a city grows, yet the loss of that stock is part of really, the ongoing challenges,” Yan said.

Given the external forces buffeting the housing market, Yan said the question before voters this month was more about “narrative” than numbers.

“Who do you believe will deliver a better tomorrow?”

Yan said the market has limits, and governments play an important role in providing safeguards for those most vulnerable.

The market “won’t by itself deal with their housing needs,” Yan said, especially given what he described as B.C.’s “30-year deficit of non-market housing.”

IS HOUSING THE ‘GOVERNMENT’S JOB’?

Craig Jones, associate director of the Housing Research Collaborative at the University of British Columbia, echoed Yan, saying people are in “housing distress” and in urgent need of help in the form of social or non-market housing.

“The amount of housing that it’s going to take through straight-up supply to arrive at affordability, it’s more than the system can actually produce,” he said.

Among the three leaders, Yan said it was Furstenau who had focused on the role of the “financialization” of housing, or large investors using housing for profit.

“It really squeezes renters,” he said of the trend. “It captures those units that would ordinarily become affordable and moves (them) into an investment product.”

The Greens’ platform includes a pledge to advocate for federal legislation banning the sale of residential units toreal estate investment trusts, known as REITs.

The party has also proposed a two per cent tax on homes valued at $3 million or higher, while committing $1.5 billion to build 26,000 non-market units each year.

Eby’s NDP government has enacted a suite of policies aimed at speeding up the development and availability of middle-income housing and affordable rentals.

They include the Rental Protection Fund, which Jones described as a “cutting-edge” policy. The $500-million fund enables non-profit organizations to purchase and manage existing rental buildings with the goal of preserving their affordability.

Another flagship NDP housing initiative, dubbed BC Builds, uses $2 billion in government financingto offer low-interest loans for the development of rental buildings on low-cost, underutilized land. Under the program, operators must offer at least 20 per cent of their units at 20 per cent below the market value.

Ravi Kahlon, the NDP candidate for Delta North who serves as Eby’s housing minister,said BC Builds was designed to navigate “huge headwinds” in housing development, including high interest rates, global inflation and the cost of land.

Boosting supply is one piece of the larger housing puzzle, Kahlon said in an interview before the start of the election campaign.

“We also need governments to invest and … come up with innovative programs to be able to get more affordability than the market can deliver,” he said.

The NDP is also pledging to help more middle-class, first-time buyers into the housing market with a plan to finance 40 per cent of the price on certain projects, with the money repayable as a loan and carrying an interest rate of 1.5 per cent. The government’s contribution would have to be repaid upon resale, plus 40 per cent of any increase in value.

The Canadian Press reached out several times requesting a housing-focused interview with Rustad or another Conservative representative, but received no followup.

At a press conference officially launching the Conservatives’ campaign, Rustad said Eby “seems to think that (housing) is government’s job.”

A key element of the Conservatives’ housing plans is a provincial tax exemption dubbed the “Rustad Rebate.” It would start in 2026 with residents able to deduct up to $1,500 per month for rent and mortgage costs, increasing to $3,000 in 2029.

Rustad also wants Ottawa to reintroduce a 1970s federal program that offered tax incentives to spur multi-unit residential building construction.

“It’s critical to bring that back and get the rental stock that we need built,” Rustad said of the so-called MURB program during the recent televised leaders’ debate.

Rustad also wants to axe B.C.’s speculation and vacancy tax, which Eby says has added 20,000 units to the long-term rental market, and repeal rules restricting short-term rentals on platforms such as Airbnb and Vrbo to an operator’s principal residence or one secondary suite.

“(First) of all it was foreigners, and then it was speculators, and then it was vacant properties, and then it was Airbnbs, instead of pointing at the real problem, which is government, and government is getting in the way,” Rustad said during the televised leaders’ debate.

Rustad has also promised to speed up approvals for rezoning and development applications, and to step in if a city fails to meet the six-month target.

Eby’s approach to clearing zoning and regulatory hurdles includes legislation passed last fall that requires municipalities with more than 5,000 residents to allow small-scale, multi-unit housing on lots previously zoned for single family homes.

The New Democrats have also recently announced a series of free, standardized building designs and a plan to fast-track prefabricated homes in the province.

A statement from B.C.’s Housing Ministry said more than 90 per cent of 188 local governments had adopted the New Democrats’ small-scale, multi-unit housing legislation as of last month, while 21 had received extensions allowing more time.

Rustad has pledged to repeal that law too, describing Eby’s approach as “authoritarian.”

The Greens are meanwhile pledging to spend $650 million in annual infrastructure funding for communities, increase subsidies for elderly renters, and bring in vacancy control measures to prevent landlords from drastically raising rents for new tenants.

Yan likened the Oct. 19 election to a “referendum about the course that David Eby has set” for housing, with Rustad “offering a completely different direction.”

Regardless of which party and leader emerges victorious, Yan said B.C.’s next government will be working against the clock, as well as cost pressures.

Yan said failing to deliver affordable homes for everyone, particularly people living on B.C. streets and young, working families, came at a cost to the whole province.

“It diminishes us as a society, but then also as an economy.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.

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