Proposed licensing fees for condo managers released

The Condominium Management Regulatory Authority of Ontario (CMRAO) is proposing licensing fees for condo managers and condo management firms that would see the two groups share the costs of regulating the sector 50-50, according to a survey posted on its website yesterday asking for input. The licensing fees are designed to deliver the revenue required to administer the new legislation that will soon govern the industry, the Condominium Management Services Act, which the not-for-profit corporation is projected to do on an annual operating budget of roughly $2.4 million.

The proposed fee model aims to recover 50 per cent of the CMRAO’s operating costs from condo managers and 50 per cent of the CMRAO’s operating costs from condo management firms because the administrative authority expects its resources to be evenly split between regulating the two groups.

The CMRAO is proposing that condo managers pay annual licensing fees based on their class of license. A limited license, which comes with conditions including that the license holder be supervised, would cost $379. A transitional general license, for condo managers that have two or more years of experience, would cost $607. A general license, for condo managers that have two or more years of experience and have fulfilled education requirements, would also cost $607.

The CMRAO is proposing that condo management firms pay a base annual licensing fee of $799, plus $350 per condo manager it employs. The per-condo-manager fee is designed to reflect the size of condo management firm as a matter of fairness.

The per-condo-manager fee is to be paid by the condo management firm, not the condo manager, and will not be reimbursed if a manager leaves the firm soon after the annual renewal period in June, according to frequently asked questions accompanying the survey on the proposed fees. However, while condo managers are to pay their own licensing fees, the condo management firm that employs them is free to reimburse them.

In the absence of solid numbers on the size of the sector, the proposed fee model assumes a “conservative estimate” of 2,000 condo managers and 300 condo management firms.

Recognizing the additional expectations the new regulatory requirements will impose on condo managers and condo management firms, the CMRAO is developing an easy-to-use, self-serve online licensing system. The web-based application and payment process is also expected to contribute to a cost-effective licensing process by reducing staffing requirements at the CMRAO.

The CMRAO is scheduled to start operating Nov. 1, when licensing requirements are due to roll out. The administrative authority said it will accept feedback on the proposed licensing fees through its online survey until Aug. 10.

Canada’s Best Restroom finalists announced

Cintas has announced the five finalists for its 2017 Canada’s Best Restroom Awards.

The public is invited to vote until September 8, 2017. The winner, to be named this fall, will receive $2,500 in facility services and be enshrined in Cintas’ Canada’s Best Restroom Contest Hall of Fame.

“We’re proud to showcase this year’s finalists who recognize the significant role clean and unique washrooms play in a positive customer experience,” said Candice Raynsford, assistant marketing manager, Cintas Canada.”

Criteria for the 8th annual contest was based on cleanliness, visual appeal, innovation, functionality and unique design elements. Last year’s winner, the Whitecourt Esso Super Station in Whitecourt, Alberta, won for its decorative lighting and eye-catching wall tiles, paired with sleek countertops.

The five finalists are:

Bayview Shopping Centre — Toronto, Ontario
Bayview Shopping Centre guests are welcomed with chic chandeliers at the restroom entrance. Its washrooms feature fully enclosed stalls, each with its own touch free toilet, faucet and hand dryer. There is a nursing room equipped with a changing station and sink, as well as two cushioned chairs. The washrooms also include stylish sconces on both sides of its classy hand washing basins.

Dorinku Restaurant — Edmonton, Alberta
Inspired by Tokyo Street Culture, this Japanese pub welcomes its guests with original Japanese dishes and a unique atmosphere. Anime figurines are encased in the walls leading to the washrooms, where patrons are surrounded by a serene décor. The warm wood grains of the vanity and walls are balanced with modern, bold coloured, soap and paper towel dispensers. Taking hygiene to the next level, Dorinku offers patrons options like complimentary mouthwash, bidet style toilets and touchless faucets.

New City Gas Night Club — Montreal, Québec
The washrooms at New City Gas reflect the trendy atmosphere of one of Montreal’s hottest venues. The washrooms resemble a Turkish bath with a communal water fountain to wash your hands. Decorative mosaic tiles line the walls while colourful LED lights illuminate the industrial space.

Renaissance Hotel — Montreal, Québec
The five individual bathrooms at the lobby level of the new Renaissance Montreal Downtown have a personality of their own. No matter which one guests choose, they will experience something unique and different. The designs are meant to provoke and intrigue guests, whether they walk into a world from Alice in Wonderland or enter a washroom with glitzy copper piping.

Spring Grill House Restaurant — Hamilton, Ontario
The spotless and stylish washrooms at Spring Grill House feature sleek, grey wall and floor tiles. Beautiful lace leaf flowers adorn individual marble water basins that sit in between modern, backlit wall artwork. The washrooms also include modern toilets and urinals, which are separated by dark panels.

Lemay Toker reinvents Hudson Block landmark

Calgary-based Lemay + Toker, has reinvented the historic Hudson Block in downtown Calgary as an inviting, community-oriented space showcasing local artists and the latest in retail design.

Lemay + Toker partnered with ATB Financial, the largest Alberta-based financial institution, and Phil & Sebastian Coffee Roasters, to develop a space inspired by collaboration, innovation and creativity.

ATB Financial had tasked Lemay + Toker with relocating its 9^th Avenue branch and corporate space to the main floor of Calgary’s historic Hudson Block Building at 102 8^th Avenue SW. Formerly the Hudson Bay Company Department Store (1891), the Roman Revival-style heritage building has been redeveloped as a cultural hub at the heart of downtown.

“Together, ATB Financial and Phil & Sebastian are ushering in a new era of design, one that’s focused on community integration and artistic contribution,” said Eric Toker, co-founder of Toker + Associates and a Lemay + Toker partner. “We are delighted to be part of this partnership and community-hub model.”

The bank’s public-facing areas are defined by custom glass display cabinets, with specialized lighting, for a rotating gallery of quarterly contributions from the Alberta College of Art and Design. Soft seating and lounge-type arrangements encourage visitors and clientele to use the space beyond its core functionality. Its coffee-shop neighbour is equally inviting.

“Phil & Sebastian’s new location represents a major shift away from the standard commuter cafe,” said Dedre Toker, co-founder of Toker + Associates and a Lemay + Toker partner. “It also serves as a gallery space for local Market Collective artists, offering a direct touch point between artists and consumers, with all sales proceeds going directly to the artists.”

The café’s custom modular shelving was also designed to display retail products and lush greenery sourced from Calgary’s local arts market and terrarium shop.

Lemay + Toker’s makeover of downtown Calgary’s Hudson Block now provides a showcase for the values of two community-focused businesses, while bringing new life and energy to this unique destination.

Calgary to sell seven sites for affordable housing

The City of Calgary will be selling seven city-owned sites to non-profit affordable housing providers.

The sites are in Saddleridge, Hillhurst, Albert Park/Radisson Heights, Forest Lawn and the downtown core. The sale is the largest to affordable housing providers in the city’s history.

“Calgary faces a critical need for affordable housing, and the City of Calgary is proud of our role to help get that built. The release of this land is a historic step forward in creating more safe, quality housing for more of our fellow citizens,” said Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi.

The sites were chosen due to their close proximity to amenities such as transit and grocery stores, key criteria for affordable housing development. The city is selling the sites at below market value, helping non-profit providers scale up and improve operational self-sufficiency.

The sale will be open to more than 60 non-profit affordable housing providers and applicants will be required to meet a specific set of criteria including demonstrated experience in multi-residential development and operating, managing or selling non-market housing.

“A pressing issue facing Calgary’s affordable housing sector is an inadequate supply of housing”, says Sarah Woodgate, director of Calgary Housing and president of Calgary Housing Company. “We’ve received feedback from non-profit providers about the lack of suitable land to build new units and we are excited to offer these development opportunities so the city’s land can be leveraged to build more homes”.

Successful applicants will be eligible to receive funding from the city’s Housing Incentive Program (HIP) and the Canada Mortgage & Housing Corporation’s (CMHC) SEED Funding program.

The HIP program provides grant funding and rebates on city permitting fees for affordable housing projects. CMHC Seed Funding provides financial assistance to support activities that will help facilitate the creation of new affordable housing units and assist existing housing projects to remain viable and affordable.

This initiative is expected to yield up to 350 new affordable homes helping provide safe and stable housing to more Calgarians.

Saskatchewan joint use school projects reach Service Commencement

Following 22 months of design and construction activity, Concert Infrastructure has announced that the Saskatchewan Joint Use Schools Projects I and II have reached Service Commencement. The milestone was reached on all nine joint-use schools in the communities of Regina, Saskatoon, Warman and Martensville on June 30, 2017.

In preparation for the 2017-18 school year, the new schools were opened to the respective school divisions for move-in and training in June. The schools create space for a total of more than 11,000 students from pre-kindergarten to Grade 8, as well as space for up to 810 children in the child care centres. The design and construction of all schools followed LEED principles and the schools are expected to achieve LEED Silver Certification in the coming months.

“As the largest school construction projects in Saskatchewan’s history, Concert Infrastructure is proud to have reached this significant milestone on time and on budget with the strong performance of our design-build partners, Bird Construction and Wright Construction,” said Derron Bain, Concert’s senior vice president, in a press release. “We are commuted to the province of Saskatchewan and look forward to working with the Saskatchewan Ministry of Education and school divisions for many years to come.”

Concert, the lead team member of the Joint Use Mutual Partnership (JUMP) consortium, will continue to manage the operations of the projects as part of the 30-year design-build-finance-maintain contract signed with the Saskatchewan Ministry of Education in 2015. Johnson Controls Canada LP will be the day-to-day service provider. Ownership of all schools remains with the school divisions.

Ontario program helps support community hubs

Ontario has launched a new program that will make it easier for communities to build support to redevelop surplus buildings into community hubs. Community hubs can offer local residents health, social, cultural, recreational and other services in one spot.

The province will help hold properties, such as schools, hospitals or provincial buildings that are no longer in use or have been deemed surplus, for as long as 18 months. That gives municipalities, organizations and Indigenous communities the time to find partners, complete a business plan and secure funding to redevelop the property into a community hub.

“The province’s role is to help make it easier for communities to come together and offer services in an integrated and coordinated way, and to make the best use of public space,” said Bob Chiarelli, Minister of Infrastructure, in a press release. “Our new initiative gives local communities the opportunity they need to use public properties, and build their vibrant and successful hubs.”

Community partners can apply for this program online now until October 16, 2017.

Stantec office is Manitoba’s 100th LEED certified project

Stantec’s new Winnipeg office is Manitoba’s 100th LEED certified project. The building earned the LEED Gold for Commercial Interiors certification on June 27.

According to the Canadian Green Building Council (CaGBC) and the CaGBC Manitoba Chapter, the province has 72 certifications in Winnipeg, six in Brandon, and the remaining 22 projects spread across the province.

“This milestone shows the commitment to green building in Manitoba and to our sustainable future,” says Crystal Bornais, chapter engagement specialist for CaGBC’s Manitoba Chapter. “Each one of the 100 projects represents the hard work of so many members of our green building community, committed owners, and leaders in public policy.”

Stantec’s 55,000-square-foot office at 311 Portage Street incorporated various green design measures in order to achieve a construction waste diversion of 91.33 per cent, a 36.7 per cent reduction in installed lighting power density over ASHRAE 90.1-2004, and reduction of 61.43 per cent over baseline for water fixture performance.

“This excellent outcome in achieving LEED Gold certification in the Commercial Interiors rating system is the result of strong collaboration within our architecture, interior design, and engineering buildings team,” says Eric Wiens, Stantec vice-president and regional leader, Manitoba.

Manitoba’s 100 LEED certified projects include 16 LEED Certified, 41 LEED Silver, 34 LEED Gold, and nine LEED Platinum.

Montreal building first vertical smart community

A new $200-million hotel-office-condo-multifamily development officially broke ground in downtown Montreal last week. Once it opens in 2020, it will be a smart city within a city, complete with its own mobile app.

The h-shaped HUMANITI Montreal project comes at a time when the skyline is full of cranes and rising towers. The city is experiencing somewhat of a renaissance in its 375^th year; tourism is booming and several infrastructure projects are in the works, including the Old Port of Montreal revitalization.

Developers want the project to be something more than cookie-cutter, more human-centred. Cogir Real Estate has teamed up with the Fonds immobilier de solidarité FTQ, designer Lemay and manager Urgo Hotels Canada on the project, which will occupy the entire block bordered by Viger, De Bleury, De La Gauchetière and Hermine Streets.

Wellbeing and connectivity are central in this endeavor, with emphasis on the “sharing of societal values within a space of collective diversity.” Three buildings will interconnect as distinct entities. Mixed-use plans include a 200-room hotel, more than 300 rental units and 150 condo units, 60,000 square feet of office space across five floors and 15,000 square feet of commercial space, with a grocery store.

Last month, the city unveiled its bold, 15-year strategic plan to attract more young people, seniors and families to the downtown core. Doing so means rejuvenating the area with more mixed-use developments, public spaces and parks, and also reflecting the times.

“Humaniti is not just a place to live and work; it’s a place with a lot of common areas, with sustainability and wellness, where there is a community of sharing,” says Cogir Chairman and CEO Mathieu Duguay. “It’s part of the next generation of real estate; the experiences are based on the users much more than the concrete.”

From left to right: Renée Benhaïm, P.Eng., Project Director – Humaniti Program; Janie Béïque, Senior Vice-President, Natural Resources, Industries, Entertainment and Consumer Goods, Fonds de solidarité FTQ; Normand Bélanger, President and CEO, Fonds immobilier de solidarité FTQ; Mathieu Duguay, Chair of the Board and CEO of COGIR (CNW Group/Cogir immobilier)

Community Smarts

The project is being called the city’s first smart, vertical community, one that Duguay says isn’t aiming for the “luxury level,” but more “mid-up.”

At the heart is a mobile app. The buildings won’t just connect physically; the people in the buildings will interlock through the app, which is currently being designed by a local IT company.

“There will be about 1,500 people working or living there, and we believe the sense of community will be big,” says Duguay, who says the technology will maximize efficiency and give people more access to one another.

Office occupants and home dwellers, for example, could request janitorial services from the hotel and food and beverages from the on-site restaurants. Users could reserve and pay for other services or access the hotel concierge who can recommend local events, entertainment and restaurants. Humaniti occupants will also be able to post to the community on the app, offering or inquiring about everything from dog-walking to yoga classes.

Users can also observe their energy consumption within a space and remotely control and monitor their heating and cooling systems, while human presence sensors will guide smart lighting.

Community Wellbeing

HUMANITI is designed to promote the wellbeing of those who inhabit its spaces. When doors open, particularly with the multifamily component, it will be the first WELL-certified project in Quebec, and the first multifamily LEED-certified building in Montreal. Developers are currently targeting WELL, which measures a space’s impact on occupant’s health by looking at seven factors: air, water, nourishment, light, fitness, comfort and mind.

Many features will reflect these concepts. For example, there will be physical installations on site for promoting activity, rooftops terraces with a pool and relaxation areas and restaurants with healthy menus.

Public transportation will be accessible, including five HUMANITI-branded electric vehicles and bikes, community-owned and shared between users.

Community Hotel

What will be the first Marriot Autograph Collection hotel in Québec will overlook the Place Jean-Paul-Riopelle in the centre of Quartier international. Urgo Hotels Canada, which currently manages 20 hotels and resorts under the Marriot banner, will manage the four-star boutique property.

Once finished, HUMANITI Hotel Montréal will offer 193 rooms between the 10^th and 18^th floors, a 100-seat restaurant, a 60-80-seat lounge-bar, reception and meeting rooms with a capacity of 300 guests, a spa, a gym, an outdoor roof-top pool and access to the building’s indoor parking.

“Each one of Marriott’s Autograph Collection hotels is unique in terms of location, luxury, trendiness, design and personality,” says Serge Primeau, vice-president, operations and development, Urgo Hotels Canada. “The HUMANITI project was very inspirational in this regard due to the value it offers and its local inspiration.”

Community of Tomorrow

The HUMANITI team set their sights on similar projects in notable cities that have embraced mixed use and public spaces, New York being one. Silicon Valley in California also inspired developers with its sense of community.

They observed housing and sustainable developments and tried to identify what modern urban residents are looking for now. They realized “green, vertical, smart and human” is an imperative, no longer a luxury.

“We believe we’re pushing the trend of mixed use to a whole new level,” says Duguay. “We’re shooting to be pretty large because we’re an urban location, at a very good site between Old Montreal and the Quartier des Spectacles, right within the international business district – in the centre of a lot of fields of interest.”

Rebecca Melnyk is online editor of Canadian Property Management @rebeccachirp

Condo returns, registry coming to Ontario in 2018

Ontario condo corporations can expect to start filing returns in 2018, according to a regulatory proposal released last week by the ministry of government and consumer services. The proposal is the latest in a series of draft rules released for public consideration as the provincial government prepares to roll out recent changes to the Condominium Act in stages.

Under the draft rules, existing corporations would have to file a one-time transitional return within 90 days of when the regulations take effect, which is expected to occur early next year. Going forward, new condo corporations would have to file returns within 90 days of registration as well as within 90 days of turnover. All condo corporations would have to file annual returns every year between Jan. 1 and March 31.

As proposed, the annual returns would contain basic information such as the condo corporation’s address (for service and municipal), name and type (e.g. standard) as well as the names of its directors and, if applicable, the name and address for service of its condo manager and management firm. The annual returns would also contain details such as the date of the corporation’s last AGM, the maximum number of votes that could be tallied at an owner’s meeting and, if applicable, information about court-appointed administrators and inspectors. Certain events, such as a change in the board of directors, would trigger a requirement to file a notice of change within 30 days.

Under the draft rules, corporations would be required to file returns with a registrar to be appointed by the recently formed Condominium Authority of Ontario and face a late filing fee for submissions made past the deadlines set out in the regulations. The registrar would be required to make the information contained in returns publicly available online, strictly for personal use. This database would also include information about any compliance orders against a corporation, director or officer concerning condo returns.

As proposed, the regulations would require the registrar to create policies for deleting outdated information from the database and take steps to safeguard the information housed in the database from misuse. While the registrar would be allowed to publish analyses and summaries of this information, as long as corporations remained anonymous and the purpose was non-commercial, the registrar would be prohibited from releasing the information in bulk. The only exemption to this would be for matters of consumer protection, in which case the information could be shared with the administrative authority designated under the Condominium Management Service Act.

The ministry said it will accept input on this regulatory proposal until Aug. 22.

Buildings factor in organizational productivity

Two truisms of modern office environments bear up differently to critical scrutiny. A recent comprehensive review and synthesis of existing research from around the world bolsters the supposition that building technologies and enhanced operational practices can have a positive impact on occupants’ performance and well-being, but raises some questions about the purported benefits of open office plans.

These findings are in a new report from the Continental Automated Buildings Association (CABA) and the National Research Council (NRC) Canada, which sets out an analytical framework for assessing the influence of building technologies and operations on organizational productivity metrics compared to other employee-focused corporate strategies. Building automation systems (BAS) and whole-building green strategies — defined as better buildings approaches — are measured against office design/format, workplace health programs, bonuses and flexible work options, although not necessarily in search of a hierarchical ranking.

“By comparing better buildings approaches to other corporate programs, which may have known costs and expected outcomes in a particular organization, the decision-maker is empowered to choose (or not) a better building approach relative to another approach,” the introduction to Improving Organizational Productivity with Building Automation Systems states.

The report, which was released in late May, is a first step in a planned three-part project to quantify links between buildings’ technical performance and organizational productivity in order to identify and demonstrate how building systems and operational practices can enhance the workplace.

Enabling comparison

NRC analysts chose seven key performance indicators (KPIs) that collectively are important gauges of organizational productivity: absenteeism; employee turnover intent; self-assessed performance; job satisfaction; health/physical symptoms; overall physical well-being; and complaints to the facilities manager. They then drew applicable data from 500 peer-reviewed academic studies that measure some aspect of how organizations function within their workspaces.

The KPIs were assigned units of measurement that could be expressed on a standardized scale — for example, days-per-worker-per-year to reflect impacts on absenteeism — and values for each KPI were plotted in a matrix that allows observers to see and compare how the five productivity strategies flow through to outcomes. This illustrates the degree to which each of the strategies reduces absenteeism, negative health/physical symptoms and workers’ inclination to seek other employment, while improving job satisfaction, overall physical well-being and building occupants’ own assessments of their job performance. (Analysts were unable to find adequate data to derive a value for the seventh proposed metric: complaints to the facilities manager.)

The new framework provides measurable values for qualities that the report acknowledges have been “notoriously difficult to quantify convincingly” in the past, offering prospective investors a more complete package of information for their payback calculations. The framework also gives budgeters a means to evaluate outcomes against input costs, and assess expenditures on all five strategies in relation to their broader range of returns.

“Our results are consistent in showing that, in general, better buildings approaches offer benefits across multiple metrics that are comparable to the benefits from other corporate programs,” the report states. “Whereas most of the other corporate strategies we studied have ongoing costs to the organization, most of the better buildings improvements would also lower building energy use and some (e.g. lighting controls that reduce lamp on-time; BAS systems that include default detection and diagnostics) will reduce maintenance costs as well. Organizations that seek to improve their overall productivity would do well to consider these results in making strategic choices.”

Questioning assumptions

The comparison to other corporate strategies uncovered occupants’ general antipathy to the open office format. Private offices surpassed or ranked alongside better buildings approaches and workplace health programs in every productivity metric, even while they diminish in number.

“The justification for this transition (away from private offices) has typically been the expectation that it will bring increased flexibility, transparency and enhanced communication between team members, although the underlying economic driver has been real estate cost savings,” the report states. “It is a strategy that is very familiar to this report’s audience, and thus serves as an excellent touchstone against which to compare other strategies.”

The exhaustive look at existing research also highlights where more work needs to be done. Notably, analysts had to abandon one of their envisioned productivity metrics — complaints to the facilities manager — because they were unable to find data that they contend should be abundant.

“This is surprising because the data are routinely collected and archived in electronic format in most large organizations, and it seems like such an obvious outcome for building researchers to pursue, with their historic focus on occupant comfort,” the report’s authors observe. “This is also an area in which a business case could be made in a relatively straightforward manner. Even excluding the potentially large benefits that lowering occupant discomfort might have for a range of organizational productivity metrics, responding to a complaint has direct tangible costs too, with both fixed and variable components.”

In future, they foresee that the Internet of Things will provide tools for measuring existing and emerging metrics. At the same time, researchers are grappling with how to measure concepts such as employee engagement, creativity, the battle for talent, internal communication effectiveness and presenteeism, and how to do this comparatively across multiple workplaces or with findings from multiple studies. In all this, they stress the importance of a common scale for key metrics and longitudinal data for assessing the connection between strategies and outcomes, and the persistence of effects.

CABA is currently recruiting interested organizations to participate in the next phase of the project, slated to begin later this year.

CMHC report addresses MURB ownership structure

A new CMHC report reveals that most of Canada’s purpose-built rental apartments are owned by individual investors or private corporations.

The report, entitled “Rental Ownership Structure in Canada”, is part of an on-going effort to address data gaps, focusing on the ownership structure of the purpose-built rental market and the extent of foreign ownership within that segment of housing in Canada. The data reported comes from a new set of questions added to CMHC’s 2016 Rental Market Survey.

“Purpose-built rental buildings are an important part of the rental supply in Canada, especially in urban centres where they house slightly more than half of households who rent,” said Gustavo Durango Senior Economist, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. “While individual investors and private corporations own the bulk of these buildings, it’s interesting to note that these groups are not evenly represented across major markets.”

Highlights from the CMHC report

Roughly 90 per cent of purpose-built rental apartment units in Canada are owned by individual investors and private corporations
Units owned by individual investors tend to have lower rents than units owned by other ownership types, but the difference between them is smallest in the most expensive markets.
The share of foreign ownership of purpose-built rental apartments is small. Nationally, it stands at just 2.4 per cent.

The report presents average national results across major centres, while highlighting the markets of Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal and Halifax. These five centres were chosen for more detailed analysis because they are the largest rental markets in their respective regions in terms of their share of the overall stock of the purpose-built rental apartment market.

The first part of the report defines the different types of owners and discusses overall market shares while highlighting key regional differences. The second part presents results on average rent levels, age of structures, vacancy rates and the size of structures associated with the different types of owners. The third part discusses results relating to the foreign ownership of the purpose-built rental apartment stock.

To access this and other reports from CMHC, please subscribe to Housing Observer Online.

Casalova acquires My Property Managers

Canadian online real estate marketplace, Casalova, announced that it has acquired My Property Managers (MyPM) and its $35 million in assets under management. MyPM is a professional property management group that manages residential properties in the Greater Toronto Area. This deal is Casalova’s first acquisition since its founding in 2014.

“We believe in creating a seamless one-stop experience for our clients. This means that people can now buy, rent, manage, and sell properties all through Casalova. Our clients have been requesting property management services for some time now and we’ve been testing it privately since January,” said Ray Taaeb, CEO and co-founder of Casalova. “Creating this experience will streamline the entire process as we move towards our vision of creating a full-service solution to become the go-to real estate platform for Canadians.”

As part of the acquisition, all current MyPM customers will also receive a $50,000 rent guarantee and $50,000 vandalism protection — one of Casalova’s main selling points for landlords and property managers. The entire MyPM team will also be joining Casalova.

“We’ve been using Casalova for a couple years now to rent our properties and saw that the company was ahead of the curve in transforming the real estate industry with its offerings,” said Carole Charbonneau, CEO of MyPM who will work under Casalova’s Asset Management and Realty division. “We’re incredibly excited to be joining the company and for our clients to have access to the resources of Casalova along with their protection packages. It’s a win-win for everyone.”

Casalova is Canada’s largest listings marketplace for residential real estate and with the acquisition of MyPM, it is now also a full-service real estate platform that allows consumers to buy, rent, sell and have properties managed through a single online platform. Casalova plans to bring its total assets under management to $100 million by the end of 2017 through further acquisitions and organic growth from its current client base.

Canadian properties earn 2017 TOBY Awards

Fifteen properties across North America were recently honoured with The Outstanding Building of the Year (TOBY) Awards at the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) International’s annual conference.

Awards were handed out on June 27, at a gala in Nashville, Tennessee. Four Canadian properties received a TOBY Award, which is the commercial real estate industry’s highest recognition honouring excellence in commercial building management and operations in specific categories of building size or type.

Properties must first win both local and regional competitions. Judging is based on community impact, tenant and employee relations programs, energy management systems, accessibility, emergency evacuation procedures, building personnel training programs and overall quality indicators. A team of expert industry professionals also conducted comprehensive building inspections.

Here is a list of winning properties by category:

Industrial Office Building: the winner is Kennedy Matheson Industrial Complex in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. The property is managed by Menkes Property Management Services Ltd. and owned by 3883281 Canada Inc.

Retail Building: the winner is CF Toronto Eaton Centre in Toronto. The property is managed and owned by the Cadillac Fairview Corporation Ltd.

Medical Office Building: the winner is East Calgary Health Centre in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The property is managed by Bentall Kennedy (Canada) LP and owned by Beacon Hill Apartments Ltd.

Over One Million Square Feet: the winner is the Toronto-Dominion Centre in Toronto. The property is managed by the Cadillac Fairview Corporation Ltd. and owned by the Cadillac Fairview Corporation Ltd. and OPB (TDC), Inc. The Toronto-Dominion Centre also is a BOMA 360 Performance Program building.

500,000 to One Million Square Feet: the winner is 411 East Wisconsin Center in Milwaukee. The property is managed by Riverview Realty Management and owned by FMC Investment Opportunities 411 East Wisconsin SP. 411 East Wisconsin Center also is a BOMA 360 Performance Program building.

250,000 to 499,999 Square Feet: the winner is 100 Bayview Circle in Newport Beach, California. The property is managed by RiverRock Real Estate Group and owned by AEW Capital Management.

100,000 to 249,999 Square Feet: the winner is The Addison in Dallas. The property is managed by Holt Lunsford Commercial and owned by AD Addison, LLC. The Addison also is a BOMA 360 Performance Program building.

Under 100,000 Square Feet: the winner is 6525 The Corners in Norcross, Georgia. The property is managed by CBRE and owned by Glenfield Capital.

Corporate Facility: the winner is HESS Tower in Houston. The property is managed by CBRE and owned by HT Houston Portfolio, LP. Hess Tower also is a BOMA 360 Performance Program building.

Earth category: the winner is 71 South Wacker in Chicago. The property is managed by JLL and owned by Irvine Company. 71 South Wacker also is a BOMA 360 Performance Program building.

Government Building: the winner is 2 Capitol Square in Atlanta. The property is managed and owned by the Georgia Building Authority.

Historical Building: the winner is The Wrigley Building in Chicago. The property is managed by Zeller Realty Group and owned by BDT Capital Partners, LLC and Zeller Realty Group. The Wrigley Building also is a BOMA 360 Performance Program building.

Renovated Building: the winner is One Shell Plaza in Houston. The property is managed by Hines Interests, LP and owned by Busycon Properties, LLC. One Shell Plaza also is a BOMA 360 Performance Program building.

Suburban Office Park Low-Rise: the winner is The Summit at Lantana in Austin, Texas. The property is managed by HPI Real Estate Management and owned by 7171 SW Parkway Associates, LP.

Suburban Office Park Mid-Rise: the winner is Centennial Lakes Office Park in Edina, Minnesota. The property is managed by Cushman & Wakefield/NorthMarq and owned by Centennial Lakes I-V, LLC. Centennial Lakes Office Park also is a BOMA 360 Performance Program building.

Plessey to provide lighting to biophilic office project

Plessey, a manufacturer of semiconductor products used in many applications including solid-state lighting, has announced it is a core partner in the world’s first biophilic design project. The ‘Biophilic Office’ is a ground-breaking office refurbishment project run by BRE, a building research organization.

The project will be located on the BRE campus at Watford in a 650-metre-square office building. The building will be refurbished according to biophilic design principles, putting a spotlight on nature. Biophilia is based on the innate attraction to living systems and natural processes. The project is designed to provide quantifiable evidence of the benefits of a biophilic design on health, wellbeing and productivity of office workers. The project is a comprehensive and long-term study that is unique for its scale and data capture.

A key result of the project will be to provide a firm foundation for the guidance and adoption of measures in the facilities management and refurbishment sectors to promote health and wellbeing in offices.

As one of several core partners on the project, Plessey will be using the Biophilic Office, as well as its own test facilities, to evaluate the office’s role in promoting the health and wellbeing of office workers, in addition to expanding research into this type of nature-centred design in general.

Over a three year period, Plessey will contribute its expertise and knowledge in sensing and solid-state lighting technologies, which are commercially available in a range of Plessey’s products. Plessey’s Hyperion range was designed to provide supplementary lighting in greenhouses, helping to achieve increased productivity for growers while providing 40 per cent energy savings compared to equivalent 600W and 1000W sodium lights. Plessey’s Orion series of LED modules delivers new levels of design freedom to architectural and industrial lighting designers.

“The project will show how quantified improvements in productivity and wellness can bring rewards for landlords, occupiers, developers and all those concerned with the office and wider built environment,” said Ed Suttie, research director at BRE, in a press release.

“We believe this exciting new project will yield much valuable data and enable us to develop lighting technologies that are truly people-centric, where light levels can be adapted to suit human circadian rhythms,” added Dr. Keith Strickland, Plessey’s Chief Technology Officer.

Researchers will carry out a baseline year of pre-refurbishment and a year of post-refurbishment monitoring, evaluating the Biophilic Office environment for daylight, lighting, indoor air quality, acoustic, thermal and humidity comfort. Office occupants will undergo confidential health evaluations and sign up to a series of online questionnaires and surveys. They will enlist the help of wearable technology to monitor key health metrics.

Tips for effective storage room management

How can storage rooms be managed more effectively?

With all the hats building managers must wear, one responsibility that seems to get overlooked — at least until problems arise — is the storage room. All facilities need one or more storage rooms to safely house supplies, equipment and related parts, among other things, to keep a modern facility operating smoothly.

Effectively managing storage rooms means making sure those items are kept safe, secure, and available to building managers, staff, and occupants as needed. Here’s how:

Allocate enough space

Look for more space than is needed when moving in, because storage space requirements tend to grow over time. If a facility is short on space, see if it can be enlarged; create new storage areas from unused areas; or discard any items that are no longer needed.

Select multi-purpose cleaning products

Look for cleaning products that replace two, three, or more. Some distributors have access to web-based dashboard systems that can help building managers identify these products. This is now a huge trend in the professional cleaning industry.

Assign management responsibility

Storage rooms need to be managed. If not, they can become overcrowded, making it harder to find things when needed. The job of a storage room manager is to ensure storage areas are kept neat, clean, and orderly; properly shelved; and that items are kept safe with the help of a storage room checkout system, noting when items were removed from the storage room and by whom.

Keep clean, organized

Paint storage rooms white, install proper lighting and keep them clean and orderly. The storage room manager should create a plan for where to store various products. A messy, poorly kept storage room will likely become more disorganized and unkempt over time.

Protect against theft

Security is important in storage rooms, as they are prone to theft. Consider installing a 24/7 security system that requires designated people to punch in their own security code.

Set re-stocking triggers

Have minimum and maximum triggers for replenishing inventory in the storage room. Know what capacity the room has for a particular item and leave enough time to order and receive supplies before the facility runs short. Keeping tabs on the flow of supplies will also help to identify changes in usage, which may prompt the building manager to look into why.

Storage room management is an ongoing process, so it’s important to regularly review a facility’s plan.

Michael Wilson is vice president of marketing for AFFLINK, a global leader in supply chain optimization.

National sales forecast to decline later this year

The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) has updated its forecast for home sales activity for 2017 and 2018. Housing market trends continue to vary greatly among regions, especially in British Columbia, the Greater Golden Horseshoe and provinces that depend on oil and natural resource production.

In British Columbia, activity is showing early signs of recovering from the correction that occurred last year in some regions of the province. The CREA says this suggests home buying sentiment may be starting to improve.

In Ontario, evidence suggests that housing market sentiment has similarly cooled following the provincial government’s introduction of the Fair Housing Plan. Trends for the province are softening, with home sales and price growth in the Greater Golden Horseshoe area slowing.

In Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland and Labrador, sales activity is still low as supply remains elevated. This has resulted in slightly softer price trends in Alberta and Saskatchewan, while Newfoundland and Labrador faced more pronounced price declines. Despite this, Alberta’s sales activity has firmed up compared to the low it reached in early 2016 and the balance between supply and demand in the province has been tightening. In comparison, the balance between supply and demand in Saskatchewan and Newfoundland favours buyers.

Housing markets in Manitoba, Northern and Eastern Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island all had rising sales in 2016, which helped draw down previously elevated levels of supply. So far in 2017, more balanced market conditions have remained in all of these regions.

Access to financing and affordability for potential home buyers has been reduced by tighter federal regulations announced late last year, together with recent increases in mortgage default insurance premiums and the changes to Ontario housing policies. Since the changes were only implemented recently, the combined impact of policy changes on home buyer and seller sentiment, sales, listings and the balance between the two pose potential upside and downside forecast risks.

Nationally, sales activity is expected to decline by 1.5 per cent to 527,400 units in 2017. This remains relatively unchanged compared to CREA’s previous national forecast, with an upward revision to the sales forecast for British Columbia offsetting a downward revision to Ontario’s projected results.

Sales in British Columbia are still expected to decline in 2017 compared to the all-time record in 2016 of a nine per cent drop. Newfoundland & Labrador is also forecast to see a large sales decline in 2017 (-11.7 per cent), continuing the trend that has occurred for nearly a decade. Smaller declines in activity are forecast for Saskatchewan (-4.4 per cent), Ontario (-2.1 per cent) and Prince Edward Island (-5.3 per cent).

Alberta is expected to have the largest increase in activity in 2017 (+10.2 per cent), but this increase still leaves sales in the province below its 10-year average.

In other regions, sales activity this year is expected to be little changed compared to last year’s levels in Manitoba (+0.3 per cent) and Nova Scotia (-0.4 per cent). In Quebec and New Brunswick, however, sales are predicted to increase modestly (+3.6 per cent and +1.9 per cent, respectively).

The national average price is expected to climb 7.4 per cent to $526,000 in 2017. Ontario is projected to post the largest average price gain this year (+16 per cent), which would still represent a moderation from where it is currently.

Only Newfoundland and Labrador (-5.4 per cent) and Saskatchewan (-1.6 per cent) are predicted to see average price declines in 2017, in line with historically elevated supply in these two provinces. Average price gains are forecast to sit within the two to three per cent range in most other provinces this year.

In 2018, national home sales are predicted to total 523,200 units, a decline of 0.8 per cent compared to the 2017 forecast. Most of the annual decline is expected to be caused by fewer sales in British Columbia and Ontario following expected interest rate increases later this year.

The national average price is forecast to climb by 1.8 per cent to $535,400 in 2018, with an expected gain of about five per cent in Ontario balancing a drop of nearly four per cent in British Columbia. The expected increase in Ontario home sales reflects an anticipated calming of home buying sentiment and modest rebound in sales in the Greater Golden Horseshoe region. The expected decline in average price for British Columbia homes is also in part compositional, as Vancouver sales are likely to decline as mortgage interest rates rise.

Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador are projected to see small average price declines next year, with home price increases predicted for other regions more or less tracking overall consumer price inflation in 2018.

Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth hotel reopens in Montreal

Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth hotel reopened its doors today in Montreal after spending the last year morphing into the city’s newest business destination.

Owner Ivanhoé Cambridge worked closely with Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, Sid Lee Architecture and general contractor Pomerleau to modernize areas and add 35,000 square feet of convention space. Capacity is the second largest in Montreal after the Palais des congrès.

Most areas are now accessible, including about 500 rooms, various common areas and Suite 1742 (site of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s iconic Bed-In for Peace), as well as the spa. Many new features will be unveiled in the weeks to come, but some restaurants are already open.

Business Spaces

The convention floor on the second level features modern, flexible conference and meeting rooms that can be laid out to suit users’ needs and smooth wayfinding with personalized digital touchscreen signage technology. With high-speed 1 GB connectivity, it is said to be one of the fastest networks in the city.

It also include co-working zones and multipurpose spaces designed as private recreation space for businesspeople, and a lounge with a bar that overlooks downtown Montreal.

CoLab3 business campus is connected to a new private outdoor terrace with views of Mont Royal. It has 13 rooms, including zones designed for playful creativity and inspiring themed rooms for dynamic business meetings. Designers were inspired by the world of start-ups and digital keyboards, so the names and designs of the rooms reflect original concepts. The PING room, for example, includes a ping-pong table as a meeting table, with carpeting resembling artificial turf.

Food and Drink

Opening this summer, the Artisans market will be Canada’s first urban market located in a hotel, according to the owners. Urban grocery shopping and gourmet take-out counters will feature local products and artisans unique to the province.

New restaurants include Rosélys, which specializes in bistronomie cuisine and Bar Nacarat, a cocktail bar experience offering “liquid cuisine,” with multiple stations drawing inspiration from the open concept kitchen, and Café Kréma, which serves high-end, homemade hot and cold drinks.

And in the main lobby, the Agora is a multipurpose space with built-in food stations and can be used for product launches, concerts and other public events.