GTA condo rents climb 12 per cent year-over-year

The number of condominium apartments leased in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) through the MLS system fell two per cent in 2016 to 26,602 units, according to Urbanation’s year-end 2016 rental results. This is the first annual decline recorded by the company since 2011. Rental activity slowed in 2016 due to occupancy delays for condos under construction, less rental turnover of the existing stock, and a rise in resale activity. Meanwhile, applications for new purpose-built rental developments rose to 27,812 units, which is nearly three times the 10,513 units proposed one year ago.

Despite a 34 per cent increase year-over-year in final closings for newly completed condos in the fourth quarter of 2016, total rental listings fell by eight per cent, causing lease volumes to drop four per cent annually. As resale prices for condos climbed 15 per cent over the same period, more owners have decided to sell their units instead of renting them out. At the same time, existing tenants have become less willing to move due to the high cost of renting an apartment in the open market. The share of the total inventory of condos leased last year fell to 8.5 per cent from 9.3 per cent in 2015, while the share of total units resold increased from 7.1 per cent to 8.1 per cent.

The average rent of condo apartments climbed 11.7 per cent year-over-year in the fourth quarter, the highest level of growth ever recorded by Urbanation and especially notable when compared to the 4.2 per cent rate of increase recorded one year ago. This acceleration is partially due to a shift in lease activity to the former City of Toronto and relatively high rents in newly completed buildings. However, same sample rents grew by 7.3 per cent, as the average number of days on the market fell to 13, down one full week compared to the fourth quarter of 2015.

“The undersupply of rentals in the GTA continued to worsen throughout the year, causing rents to surge alongside home prices and further deteriorating housing affordability across the region,” said Shaun Hildebrand, Urbanation’s senior vice president, in a press release. “While less pressure on rent growth may arrive in 2017 due to a temporary rise in new apartment completions, it’s become clear that more attention needs to be paid to building rentals over the longer-term.”

In condo rentals, the average rent reached a record $2.77 per square foot in Q4-2016, based on an average unit size of 719 square feet, causing the average monthly rent to climb to $1,990. In the former City of Toronto, rents averaged $2,134, or $3.13 per square foot, while the suburbs of Etobicoke, North York and Scarborough averaged $1,857, or $2.47 per square foot. In the 905 region, rents were lower at an average $1,739, or $2.22 per square foot. Rents showed the largest increase in the former City of Toronto at 12 per cent, compared to seven per cent in the Toronto suburbs and six per cent in the 905 region.

In Urbanation’s survey of purpose-built rental apartment projects completed across the GTA since 2005 (49 buildings featuring a total of 8,484 units), a vacancy rate of 0.6 per cent was reported, down from one per cent last year. The availability rate (vacant units plus those where the tenant has given notice) was 1.6 per cent, the lowest level recorded by Urbanation over the past two years. Rents were an average of $2.49 per square foot, an increase of five per cent year-over-year. The inventory of purpose-built projects under construction was 22 buildings and 5,133 units in the fourth quarter of 2016, down 1,037 units year-over-year.

Reducing maintenance costs with energy efficiency

Despite the challenges of working with increasing economic restraints, little changes in maintenance and operations can significantly impact the efficiency of a facility. While such energy savings can result from capital planning and proactive maintenance, a large portion of savings can be maximized through occupant engagement, sustainable practices and ensuring components perform at optimum level.

Taking all these factors into account, there is a potential 30 per cent minimum cost savings in older buildings (30 plus years) and up to 15 per cent savings in newer facilities.

Industry members shared such insight into effective methods for lowering maintenance and operating costs in facilities that also seek high sustainability standards at The Building Show in Toronto last December. They weighed apparent challenges against simple energy efficiency measures that also help achieve full life expectancy for building systems. Regardless of newer technology, much can be accomplished when taking a closer look at reducing demand.

“The challenge is to not have a large backlog in repairs,” noted Peter Leong, associate vice president, Building Sciences, WSP Canada. “Once you start deferring repairs and maintenance, you’re going to end up increasing your cost and will be faced with worse challenges.”

Leong pointed out that asset management figures highly in the whole life cycle of a facility, from pre-design to maintenance. Especially in newer facilities, asset management helps determine future planning and strategies. That said, he highlighted three basic maintenance strategies: corrective, preventative and condition-based. Look at major capital items and when they are due for repairs. Identify both significant and insignificant items, the maintenance strategy appropriate for each, what kind of regular intervals are needed and when condition will be assessed and activities performed. The key is to optimize a strategy according to when components will be maintained over their lifetimes and be as proactive as possible.

Energy efficiency measures

Ariel Feldman, project principal and technical lead at WSP, used an example of a leaky faucet to demonstrate simple cost savings. He said that one drop of water from a faucet, every second of every day for a whole year, amounts to $27 annually. Such small factors can have big impacts on utility costs, but are often overlooked. He also highlighted several short term paybacks inherent to mechanical systems.

Boilers

High efficiency boilers have been on the market for a while. Knowing when to install these boilers depends on varying factors, so there are benefits to integrating capital planning into energy assessments. Feldman said a facility can receive a six to 16-year pay back if a boiler is replaced ten years into its life cycle. But when looking just at the incremental costs of moving to a high efficiency boiler, at the end of that boiler’s life cycle, the pay back drops to three to eight years. Sometimes it still makes sense to put in a high efficiency condensing boiler sooner rather than later, such as in a really old building with a 60 per cent efficient boiler. But for most buildings, he said, this won’t pay back effectively unless it’s integrated into a facility’s life cycle analysis.

Chiller plants

The chiller plant will pay back in four to 12 years when you look at the incremental cost. If the chiller is just being upgraded, without the existing chiller running out of its life, a facility may not see the same payback or may not payback within the life of the chiller itself. That said, it is recommended that capital planning and energy auditing procedures should be integrated.

Air handlers

Look at upgrading air handlers when they begin to reach end of life. In Canada, high-efficiency natural gas burners can save enough energy to payback in two years. Facilities without economizers are missing out on the advantage of precooling in the shoulder seasons like fall or spring when it’s cool.
Feldman says that could pay back almost instantly. Other upgrades include high-performance casing, which pays back in four years. Advanced rooftop controls or retrofit measures, somewhat new technology, offer a one to four-year payback and can be added to an existing roof top unit.

Energy audits

A “perfect time” to conduct an energy audit is when a facility is reaching 25 to 30 years old, and various systems will need replacing.
“You get a sense of what opportunities are available before those [systems] start to fail and you are really panicking, trying to replace them as much as possible,” said Feldman.

An ASHRAE Level 1 audit offers a list of measures, but may not offer a financial analysis. That said, there are higher level energy assessments. An ASHRAE Level 2 energy audit delivers great value, which is why IESO has been offering incentives to pay for almost half of the audit. Costs vary depending on the size of a building. Generally, said Feldman, depending on what details are analyzed, a commercial building could cost about $25,000 to $100,000, with incentives covering half of this expense. An ASHRAE Level 3 audit focuses on the potential capital-intensive projects identified in Level 2, but with more detailed field analysis and engineering data.

For instance, if you have an idea of changing fan coil units to heat pumps and want to understand very specifically how it will affect your whole building, deep energy modeling might be needed. According to Save on Energy, audit funding includes detailed analysis of capital intensive modifications that identify potential capital-intensive projects from the electricity survey analysis. Detailed field data combines with in-depth engineering analysis to provide potential project costs and savings calculations. Other incentives stem from Toronto Hydro, Enbridge, Union Gas and PowerStream.

Retrocommissioning

Retrocommissioning is a higher level energy assessment that involves looking at how a system is operating and what low and no cost measures can be implemented. If every measure is implemented, the average energy savings from a retrocommissioning job, including the cost of the consultant, is estimated to be 16 per cent with a 13-month payback.

Back in 2013, WSP retrocommissioned the Metro Convention Centre in downtown Toronto, and found a small steam leak that was occurring every minute of the day all year round.

“The steam usage we found was high in the summer, and this went unnoticed for a long time because domestic hot water runs off of steam,” said Feldman. “People assumed if it’s high in summer, people are using a lot of water. Turns out they were spending about $26,000 a year on this steam leak.”

Turning if off. Turning it down. Turning it back

“The cheapest kilowatt hour you’re ever going to pay for is the one you don’t use,” said Feldman. “So, turning a system off when it’s not in use is a no brainer.”

This thinking extends to lighting and carbon monoxide sensors in parking garages. Parking garage exhaust fans don’t need to be running all day; only when carbon monoxide reaches a certain level. LED lighting offers short-term paybacks. For instance, when considering maintenance costs related to high pole lighting in the exterior of a facility, payback from LED are less than a year with incentives. With precooling systems, take advantage of the cold air outside, and look for opportunities to turn systems down. During colder months, heat pumps don’t need to be running at peak load on warmer days.

Issues can arise as building operations drift over time due to turnover. Operators may not know what their previous successor did. For example, said Feldman, maybe there is an override because some tenants asked for it, but ten years later, a new operator might not understand why the override still exists, but still decide to keep it in place.

Since tenants control about a third to half of the energy in a building, specifically commercial buildings, consider how and when these occupants use space and look for opportunities to reduce HVAC schedules, lighting or flood loads.

After a delving into other various energy efficiency measures, Feldman summed up the process of implementing a project. Use expert advice and start with energy assessments and capital planning as soon as possible so strategies are in place when equipment begins to fail, Develop a plan and ensure funding is available when it needs to be. Budget for training as systems, especially new management software, is only as good as the people operating it. Once implemented, celebrate success and monitor performance to guarantee benefits.

King Portland Centre to include rental property

Allied Properties REIT and RioCan REIT announced that King Portland Centre, which is currently under construction in Toronto, will include a rental property along with office and retail components.

The overall development site for King Portland Centre includes 79,975 square feet of land with frontage on King Street West, Portland Street and Adelaide Street West and is comprised of a restored heritage structure, 602-604 King West (the “Rental Property”), an adjacent property extending from King West through to Adelaide West (the “Development Property”) and a heritage structure under restoration, 642 King West (the “Ancillary Property”).

The Rental Property component of King Portland Centre is substantially leased and is expected to remain so through the development process. The Ancillary Property is undergoing restoration and is scheduled for completion in early 2018.

Allied and RioCan are building a new structure on the Development Property that will be integrated with the Rental Property and the Ancillary Property. The new structure will be comprised of 256,173 square feet of office GLA and 13,035 square feet of retail GLA fronting on King West and approximately 116 rental residential units fronting on Adelaide West.

The office and retail components of King Portland Centre have been designed to a LEED CS Platinum standard and will include best-in-class operational, environmental, life-safety and health and wellness systems.

Each of Allied and RioCan owns an undivided 50 per cent interest in the Rental Property, the Development Property and the Ancillary Property. On completion of the new component of King Portland Centre, which is scheduled for early 2019, Allied will manage the office component and RioCan will manage the retail and residential components.

Indigo Lease Transaction

Indigo’s head office currently occupies 65,027 square feet over seven floors at Allied’s 468 King West, representing all the GLA in the building, including the ground and basement floors, which can more valuably be put to retail use.

Recognizing the need to expand the size of its head office and to achieve efficiencies possible on larger floor plates, Indigo decided not to renew its lease at 468 King West, which currently expires on June 30, 2018, and will be extended as necessary to accommodate the move to King Portland Centre. On expiry of Indigo’s lease at 468 King West, Allied will upgrade the property and reposition the ground and basement floors for retail use with a view to boosting the NOI from the property in a material way.

Indigo has agreed to lease approximately 78,810 square feet of office GLA over four floors at King Portland Centre for a term of 15 years and six months commencing on July 1, 2018, subject to unavoidable delay. The space will be used for Indigo’s head office and will include a portion of the second floor and all of the third, fourth and fifth floors.

“Indigo is one of our pioneering tenants at King & Spadina, having taken occupancy at 468 King West in April of 1999 and grown continuously in the area since that time,” said Michael Emory, President & CEO of Allied. “We value the relationship immensely and are delighted that we can accommodate Indigo’s workspace needs in the area as they continue to evolve.”

“The downtown west area of Toronto is an exciting and vibrant part of Toronto that RioCan and Allied long ago identified as an area where our tenants want to be,” said Edward Sonshine, CEO of RioCan. “Our success at Shoppes on Queen West, located a few blocks north on Portland Avenue, is a prime example of what can be accomplished in urban retail, and the King Portland Centre enhances our urban footprint by extending our presence to include office and rental residential. The substantial progress that Allied has made leasing the office component of this high profile mixed use development demonstrates the success of this project and our shared vision to shape the future of the downtown west market.”

Touchless technology in the kitchen

Hands-free technology has taken off in residential kitchens. Hands-free faucets (also known as touchless faucets, electronic faucets, or motion-sensing faucets) continue to evolve and gain popularity in homes. While the technology is not new (think public bathrooms), improvements with sensors and wiring have made the faucets indispensable in a busy kitchen.

The faucet is one of the most used tools in the kitchen and touchless technology has made it even better and more effective. With a tap of a finger, forearm or wrist, the flow of water is activated, helping to get work done faster while minimizing mess and germs. Major brands lead the way, offering different designs and features, but the same great convenience.

1.Kohler Sensate
Kohler’s Sensate kitchen faucet takes touchless to a whole new level of convenience with response technology, featuring a state-of-the-art sensor that responds in 20 milliseconds.

2.Moen STo
Moen’s MotionSense faucets feature two sensors to set water in motion — a ready sensor at the base for quick tasks and a wave sensor at the top of the spout.

3.GROHE Minta Touch
GROHE’s Minta Touch features a sleek, gooseneck design that starts and stops the flow of water with a touch to the faucet’s spout. New innovations include a Cleaning Mode, which temporarily stops the water flow after touching the faucet for eight seconds, allowing time to clean.

Avison Young acquires Hotel Assets Group

Avison Young leverages its footprint in the hospitality sector with the recent purchase of Atlanta-based hotel real estate brokerage company Hotel Assets Group, LLC (Hotel AG).

Hotel AG is rebranded as Avison Young. This acquisition will provide a platform to launch a new hospitality group that will operate nation-wide in the U.S., and expands Avison Young’s service offerings in Atlanta and other U.S. markets to include brokerage, capital markets and structured finance services for select-service and full-service hotel real estate in all 50 states, focusing on single-asset and large-portfolio sales.

“As a result, our strategic framework will now cover five core service offerings as hospitality complements our existing office, industrial, retail, and multi-family property sectors while serving two key client segments – investors and occupiers,” said Avison Young CEO Mark Rose. “Moreover, the new hospitality group will ensure that this new core service fits seamlessly with all of our other business lines.”

Twenty-five new members, including 20 brokers, join the company. Keith Thompson, Brad Sinclair, Michael Bernath (Atlanta), Andrew Broad (New York), Chris Stark (Portland, Oregon) and Eric Gunderson (Los Angeles) become principals of Avison Young. Working with Avison Young’s senior leadership group, the team will co-ordinate the strategic direction of the hospitality group and manage its day-to-day operations while advising new and existing clients.

Founded by Keith Thompson and Brad Sinclair in 2007, Hotel AG has 182 hotels on the market totaling $3 billion in market value with $600 million worth of properties under sale agreement.

“With one of the largest hotel real estate markets in the U.S., Atlanta is the ideal base for our new hospitality group,” notes Steve Dils, Avison Young principal and managing director of the firm’s Atlanta office. “We’re thrilled that Keith has brought his team to Avison Young at a time when multiple transactional opportunities involving hotel assets are emerging.”

New Canadian context for real estate education

Students awakening to the possibilities of a career in Canada’s commercial real estate sector have typically done so through the medium of American textbooks on investment and finance. Instructors in the handful of undergraduate and graduate level degree programs across the country that offer a specialization in real estate have long relied on imported sources for the basic theories and their own network of expertise to cover a sweeping range of uniquely Canadian market factors.

The newly released textbook, Canadian Commercial Real Estate: Theory, Practice, Strategy, now packages the universal principles and the domestic context into one 500+-page compendium devised to impart a grounding in real estate fundamentals, transactions and the multidisciplinary oversight of income properties. With the association for Canada’s leading commercial real estate companies and institutional investors — REALPAC — serving as the publisher, the textbook is held up as a tool for both prospective new recruits and their employers.

“People entering into the industry won’t have to go through the serendipitous experience-based training that many of us went through early in our careers,” says Michael Brooks, the principal author and REALPAC’s chief executive officer. “They have a baseline they can work from for all those things they previously had to learn by osmosis.”

That baseline follows a 12-chapter learning curve from underpinning philosophies and mathematical methodologies to hands-on deal-making, financing, development and asset management. In addition to Brooks, who has practiced commercial real estate law for 35 years, eight professionals from various industry disciplines contributed sections of the extensive content, while dozens of others reviewed and commented on the work in progress. The resulting representative picture of the Canadian commercial sector has received enthusiastic reviews from educators.

“I’ve read at least 100 textbooks in real estate and this is one of the best,” Cynthia Holmes, chair of the Real Estate Management program at Ryerson University, told a gathering at last week’s official book launch, which also featured a panel discussion on needs and priorities for real estate education and training.

Demand for formal learning support is growing with the relatively recent advent of Ryerson’s undergraduate program, which will deliver its first class of graduates in the spring of 2017, and new master’s level programs at University of Calgary and University of Toronto. Along with longer established programs and/or specializations at University of Guelph, York University and University of British Columbia, commercial real estate might be categorized as a niche academic pursuit with upside potential.

“I see students who are 19 years old saying: Real estate is my thing,” Holmes reported. “They are incredibly engaged in this topic.”

The textbook’s proponents foresee an even broader base of consumers including industry rookies with more general educational backgrounds, neophyte investors seeking to augment their knowledge of the asset class, and researchers from other fields who require clarification of real estate related matters.

While math is math in any backdrop, many defining elements of the market are embedded in Canadian law, land use planning, businesses practices and culture. It doesn’t take a strident nationalist to conclude that approximately USD $784 billion of institutional grade real estate (as Prudential Real Estate Investors estimated in 2012) merits a tailored insiders’ perspective.

“A country the size of Canada with our mature market ought to have its own textbook,” the introductory chapter states.

“This fills a need,” Brooks concurs. “REALPAC is always about leadership, and the textbook is a good fit from the leadership perspective.”

Cultivating a combination of hard and soft skills

Core knowledge of real estate’s more technical elements and procedures can give prospective new hires an initial edge over candidates with other educational backgrounds. Nevertheless, the associated panel discussion frequently turned to qualities that aren’t tied to any specific academic regimen — notably, the ability to communicate, collaborate, and identify and exploit opportunity.

Tackling the wider topic of real estate education and training for the 21st century, the moderator, John O’Bryan, honorary chairman of CBRE, characterized the panel as two suppliers and two end-users. Holmes and Andre Kuzmicki, executive director of the real estate and infrastructure program at York University’s Schulich School of Business, provided frontline insight on preparing new generations of professionals for the workforce, while John Morrison, president and chief executive officer of Choice Properties REIT, and Norm Sabapathy, executive vice president with Cadillac Fairview, offered an assessment of that product.

For senior management, a pool of graduates with focused real estate education is still something of a rarity. “In my experience, people get into the industry by default, not by design,” Morrison observed.

From employers’ perspective, Morrison and Sabapathy enumerated some of the characteristics they often see in young employees regardless of their schooling. Although there is much to praise about the savvy of a generation that has grown up on the status quo side of the digital divide, some skill sets appear to be flagging.

“There is a gap around grammar and basic literacy that troubles me,” Sabapathy said.

“Technology plays a big part in how the generation communicates,” Morrison agreed, as he made the argument that Power Point presentations do not convey information as effectively as written reports. He also commended millennials’ commitment to career advancement, but suggested their envisioned timelines aren’t always realistic.

“I think young people today work hard. They know how to put the hours in,” he added. “Their level of patience is lower. Over time, as the so-called boomer generation continues to shift out of the business, there are going to be opportunities. The question is: do they have the patience to wait for that?”

Neither a textbook nor a degree program can fill in all the gaps, particularly given the variety and complexity of material directly related to real estate investment and management that is the prime teaching responsibility. For their part, Holmes and Kuzmicki endorsed industry mentoring as another important layer of instruction.

“The question of how to balance the hard skills and soft skills is very critical because there are all these hard skills that we are obligated to deliver as part of their education, but many of the soft skills are teachable,” Holmes reflected.

Two-way learning

“It’s not about courses; it’s about the entire culture,” Kuzmicki said. He pointed to the annual Developers’ Den, Schulich international real estate case competition, now in its seventh year, as a significant experiential learning exercise with key input from an alumni organizing committee.

Meanwhile, Holmes solicited volunteers for Ryerson’s Take a Real Estate Student to Lunch program — a more informal one-on-one conversation that, having participated, Sabapathy promotes as a learning opportunity for both parties. “It is a tremendously great program for an hour-and-a-half investment,” he affirmed.

Leadership also entails embracing change and relinquishing control when it is time to do so. In this, panellists noted that today’s students clearly offer an antidote to what O’Bryan called the commercial real estate industry’s “pale, male and stale” prototype.

“The truth is, women outperform men as graduates of all university programs right across North America. So the supply is there,” Sabapathy advised.

As a downtown university in one of the world’s most ethnically and culturally diverse cities, Holmes reiterated that her students reflect their community. She challenged employers to do likewise.

“Do you want the best, or do you want people who think like you?” she asked. “Diversity is not a value just because it adds diversity. Diversity is a value because it adds something new.”

Barbara Carss is editor-in-chief of Canadian Property Management.

StanBrooke rental tower breaks ground in Montreal

Brivia Group and Gansu Tianqing Real Estate Group, partners in the YUL Condominiums project, have begun construction on StanBrooke, a 19-storey high-end rental tower on Stanley Street near Sherbrooke, in downtown Montreal.

Chic, elegant and modern, StanBrooke will have 176 apartments raging in size from bachelor, one-bedroom and two-bedroom suites. It will also feature a fitness studio, rooftop patio, lounge, storage lockers, and indoor parking for automobiles and bikes. Every unit will come with five major appliances and rent will include telecom services, Wi-Fi and electricity.

StanBrooke’s unique architectural concept was designed by Montreal-based firm Marco Manini Architecte and developed by US-headquartered international design consultants Humphreys & Partners Architects. Work is scheduled for completion in July 2018.

“We’re proud to add purposely-built rentals to our Montreal portfolio and to continue working with Gansu Tianqing Real Estate Group,” said Kheng Ly, President of Brivia Group. “The new tower is perfectly located for renters looking for a bustling and diverse neighbourhood in the heart of the City. StanBrooke will also bring fresh energy to its surroundings by revitalizing a lot and buildings that had not been actively utilized for years.”

Several market studies have confirmed demand for this type of residential project in downtown Montreal. StanBrooke is located in a vibrant neighbourhood that includes all essential services, such as cafés, fast food and fine dining restaurants, movie theatres, gyms and a pharmacy. The new development is targeting a wide range of customers, including young professionals who work downtown and students attending nearby universities.

Property management in the age of tech

Traditional marketing for property managers dictates that all you have to do is place an ad in a newspaper or local magazine to get noticed. While that may still be effective for a smaller segment of the population, increasingly rental building owners and operators know that capturing and keeping the attention of the emerging rental demographic—namely, Millennials—involves investing in technology.

Marketing Tech Blog points out that Millennials have more technology at their fingertips than any generation in history. And they know how to use it. Not to mention that 85 per cent of Millennials have a smartphone, says a study conducted by the University of Southern California. What they use those smartphones for is quite eye opening: 82 per cent of them will interact with a brand online. That begs the question: what is your brand doing online?

Give them tools

Now that the lease is signed, your marketing work is done, right? Wrong. In fact, the tech-savvy renter expects you to provide them with conveniences and amenities that will make them want to stay in your property as a customer – yes, a customer – for years to come.

Enter TransitScreen, a real-time display of transit options right in your building’s lobby. Encouraging alternative transportation use (Bike Share, anyone?), this tool has already been adopted by some of Canada’s largest landlords as well as Toronto’s City Hall. Thanks to TransitScreen’s building displays, renters can start their day knowing exactly how long they’ll need to wait for that Uber, bus or GO Train, or how long they’ll be sitting on the 401 en route to the office.

“Real estate is an old-fashioned business, but young apartment residents are looking to live in buildings on the cutting edge of technology,” says Ryan Croft, Chief Operating Officer of TransitScreen. “Owners and property managers will either stay on top of the latest building technology or risk losing tenants to building owners that embrace technology.”

Upgrade your call tracking

How do you manage your leads? You probably find that you simply don’t have time to collect leads and follow-up on them in a timely manner. This translates to missed opportunities that leave you with empty suites. That’s why National Efficiency Systems (NES) created a powerful leasing and marketing tool called LeadManaging.com. This system includes online booking, lead tracking, an automated voice-analysis tool and automated after-hours service.

“Prospective tenants love this tool,” says Darren Henry, President, LeadManaging.com. “They can book appointments online without having to wait on leasing staff. Plus, they get branded, mobile-friendly email and SMS appointment notifications and reminders!”

Henry adds that the feedback from leasing agents has been particularly positive as the program offers prequalifying, automatic notifications and post-appointment follow-up surveys. Marketing managers favour the real-time dashboard that shows leads, appointments, conversions, cost per lead and even a scorecard on how well calls are being handled and converted.

Offer resident portals

What does your online presence say about you? You probably have a website, but doesn’t everyone? The biggest challenge facing you is to transform what that website actually does. Beyond the all-important first impression it provides for potential renters, it needs to be a useful tool that your current renters can use, too.

The resident portal gives your renters quick and convenient access to pay their rent, track their payment history, and submit maintenance requests. Payquad’s extensive resident portal even allows you to access real-time reporting metrics that will give you an in-depth look at your cash flow in ways you never thought possible.

Resident portals don’t just benefit your renters–they benefit you. Eliminate the manual process of collecting rent and possibly losing cheques (or having them stolen). Easily keep track of maintenance requests and assign them to the employee best equipped to address them. Give your renters updates on property news with one simple click. It’s property management with the ease of a click, swipe or tap.

Virtual reality comes to property management

Speaking of state-of-the-art websites, let’s talk about your online apartment listings. Simply posting a text ad with a few photos won’t cut it anymore. Take your marketing to the tech-level with features like 360-degree peeks inside suites, floor plans that seem to jump out of the screen and virtual reality apartment showings. That’s right: VR apartment showings. Companies like YouVisit Studios create unique virtual rental showing experiences that are bound to captivate your audience and generate tangible results.

We asked Chaim Rivlin, CEO of RentSeeker.ca, to provide some insight into the value of video marketing techniques, specifically, property videos, 3D floor plans, and virtual tours. “Video marketing is critical nowadays,” says Rivlin. “The brain is able to process video 60,000 times faster than text. When it comes to engagement, video has far greater reach as it can be liked, shared and commented on for years to come.” Add in immersive, engaging 3D floor plans and virtual tours, he adds, and you’ve got yourself the antidote to the renter who doesn’t have the time or patience for real-life showings. “It’s all about creating an emotional connection. Text simply can’t do it the way the screen can.”

If you’re still not convinced investing in technology is critical for your business, check out the websites of some of your competitors. You might be surprised at what you find. Perhaps they are already employing much of this technology and leaving you in their dust. If you want to stand out, your marketing needs to go tech. While it may seem overwhelming, there’s a treasure trove of companies that can give you the edge you need. All you need to do is pick up your Smartphone and drop them a line.

David Janowski is the CEO of Payquad Solutions, Canada’s simplest online rental payment platform and resident portal. For more info, visit www.payquad.com.

TREB launches campaign to halt proposed LTT increases

The Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) recently launched a website, anotherobstacle.ca, to inform citizens on proposed changes to the city’s Land Transfer Tax (LTT). The proposed changes could add thousands of dollars in upfront tax for some home buyers.

TREB is also releasing the results of a survey conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs from Dec. 29, 2016 to Jan. 4, 2017, which shows that the majority (59 per cent) of Torontonians believe the City’s Land Transfer Tax should not be part of the plan to balance the city’s budget for 2017. Other results of the poll include that two-thirds (67 per cent) of Torontonians support increasing the LTT rebate for first-time buyers to reduce the amount of tax they must pay, and that 58 per cent of those polled oppose the proposal to change the city’s LTT policy to add an extra 0.5 per cent to the value of a home between $250,000 and $400,000.

“We are releasing these poll results today, in conjunction with our deputation to the city’s Budget Committee and the launch of our public website, anotherobstacle.ca, to deliver one simple message: City Council should be trying to make home ownership more attainable, not less,” said Larry Cerqua, TREB president, in a press release. “These poll results show that the last thing Torontonians want is for City Hall to put up another obstacle to achieving their dream of home ownership, especially in a city where we should be trying to make housing more affordable.”

Various proposed changes to the city’s Land Transfer Tax are concerning to the TREB, including an additional 0.5 per cent of tax on all buyers; and the elimination of the first-time buyer rebate completely for those purchasing a home over a certain threshold, which is currently being contemplated at $700,000 by city staff. This is troubling because the proposed threshold is well below the current average price of a home in Toronto, according to TREB.

“First-time buyers deserve more help, not less; and the status quo is simply not good enough,” said Von Palmer, TREB’s chief government and public affairs officer. “The provincial government recognized this, recently, by doubling their rebate for first-time buyers. That helps with the $12,000 in LTT that home buyers pay to the province on an average priced home. Unfortunately, under these proposals, Toronto first-time home buyers could be going backwards or standing still, while first-time home buyers in the rest of the province are going forward.”

Six steps to minimize safety risks in a facility

The safety and security of employees and visitors is a priority for any facility. While every facility is different and each has its own specific safety needs, businesses can implement baseline procedures and best practices to help keep a facility’s employees and visitors safe. The following six steps serve as a guide to help businesses better understand—and help minimize—safety and security risks.

Identify Risks

Being prepared is one of the best ways to make your environment safer. Start by running a security audit or risk review to pinpoint the likely risks your facility faces. Doing this will identify the common fire hazards in the workplace, such as heating units or electrical equipment, and how to prevent incidents from occurring. From there, plan out a flexible strategy that allows for growth and can easily integrate new technologies and put protocols in place to address those emergency situations. Risks are inevitable, but being aware of potential dangers can help minimize those risks and may improve response time to address the risks that can’t be prevented.

Restrict Access

Allow only necessary personnel who are familiar with the technology to access your facility’s fire, security and life safety systems. Tampering with safety systems may damage the equipment, rendering it useless or result in expensive repairs. Something as simple as pressing the wrong button can make a big impact. In an emergency situation, businesses rely on these systems and if damaged, a malfunction could mean life threatening danger.

Employ an Access Control System

In facilities where employee turnover is high, traditional lock and key entry management can be costly and runs the risk of unauthorized facility access. Access control systems are more cost effective and easier to manage, facilitating a more reliably secure environment. Instead of replacing all locks and issuing new keys after the departure of authorized personnel, access control simply requires a system recode behind the scenes.

Stay Up-to-date on System Maintenance

From smoke detectors to alarm systems, ensuring proper maintenance is crucial to system performance. Over time, dust and debris can infiltrate systems and damage equipment. Even if a system appears fully functional, it’s important to run routine tests to identify and address issues before an emergency occurs. Consider adding diagnostic technology to your system that provides notification when an anomaly is detected. Identifying and correcting issues proactively can help to save lives.

Maintain Smoking Areas

Most facilities have designated areas where smoking is allowed. These areas are often neglected; however, allowing trash to build up in ashtrays can raise the risk of a fire incident. Businesses should use large, non-tip ashtrays and ensure their contents are cold before emptied. A small ember from a lit cigarette can have a huge impact on safety.

Invest in Surveillance

Regardless of size and budget, all facilities can benefit from a monitoring system. It not only provides visibility into any suspicious activity that occurs, but it can also help with business operations like monitoring employee policy adherence and visitor traffic. Surveillance can help improve safety on its own, and can also help a facility manage the five steps listed above.

Understanding the dangers a business is up against is the first step in protecting against risk. Facilities of all sizes are exposed to security and life safety risks that can have severe consequences if not managed properly. By following the full six steps outlined above, businesses can help make their facilities safer, more secure environments.

Taleen Merjanian is corporate marketing manager at Tyco Integrated Fire & Security

Tracy MacCharles returns to condo file in cabinet post

Tracy MacCharles is returning to the condo file as Ontario’s minister of government and consumer services after a minor cabinet shuffle sparked by David Orazietti’s departure from provincial politics. MacCharles, who retains her post as minister responsible for accessibility, first served as minister of consumer services from February 2013 to June 2014. During this period, when the Condominium Act review that ultimately produced sweeping legislative reforms was ongoing, she announced the province’s plans to license condominium managers.

MacCharles replaces outgoing minister of government and consumer services Marie-France Lalonde, who becomes the minister of community safety and correctional services and remains the minister responsible for Francophone affairs. Lalonde’s new cabinet post was vacated by David Orazietti, who is retiring from provincial politics. Orazietti previously served as minister of government and consumer services, in between MacCharles’ and Lalonde’s tenures in the position.

ACMO issues service alert about fob duplication

The Association of Condominium Managers of Ontario (ACMO) issued a service alert ahead of the winter holidays about an emerging security concern. In the Dec. 21 alert, ACMO said it had recently become aware of third-party contractors in the GTA copying fobs for condominium owners who had not obtained authorization to do so from management.

“With condo residents, their family and visitors coming and going for the holidays, fob access is often convenient,” stated the alert. “That said, fob access can also be abused or misused.”

The service may be advertised as fast and inexpensive, the alert noted, but making use of it could also breach corporation rules and compromise access control in buildings by circumventing protocols for requesting additional fobs.

ACMO offered the following tips for protecting buildings and residents in light of this emerging concern:

Review the corporation’s declaration and rules for key duplication provisions.
Remind residents regularly of these rules, emphasizing the dangers of unregulated fob copying.
Maintain an up-to-date inventory of all fobs issued to and used by owners.
Be aware of these third-party contractors, some of whom list the buildings for which they can copy fobs.

Hospital cleaning staff survey reveals disturbing patterns

Recent findings from a CUPE survey of 421 hospital housekeeping staff from more than 60 hospitals across Ontario point to growing concerns among environmental service workers that hospitals do not have the capacity and enough cleaning staff to keep bedrails, mattresses, taps, door handles and chairs sterilized and bacteria free.

Hospital-Acquired Infections: Stop Preventable Deaths, which incorporates information from public health agency research, reports that due to decreased provincial funding over the years, understaffing in hospital environmental services is getting worse. Layoffs and cuts among frontline cleaning staff are regular occurrences.

The survey revealed a disturbing pattern of speed up, working short, high levels of stress and injury at work. A large majority (78 per cent) report that more duties have been added to their work. Accordingly, a large majority (76 per cent) report working at a faster rate. Over half believe the situation is unsafe. As well, 40 per cent of hospital locals report that hospital environmental service hours have been cut, in the last year alone.

Seventy per cent of housekeeping staff also report working short. This occurs when staff who are off of work for vacation, sick leave, training, or other reasons are not replaced.

Infection can easily spread from patient to patient through personal touch or by touching contaminated shared surfaces.

“There just aren’t enough cleaning staff to properly clean patient rooms, bathrooms and common areas to prevent infection,” says Nicholas Black a hospital cleaner. “Because we are often working short, we are given additional duties and workloads for cleaning staff are enormous. Increasing staffing levels would go a long way to ensuring a safer environment for patients/clients, families, staff, physicians and volunteers.”

The Public Health Agency of Canada reports that more than 200,000 patients get infections every year while receiving healthcare in Canada and that more than 8,000 of these patients, more than 3,000 of them Ontario patients, die as a result.

“These are preventable deaths. But government and hospital policies are making this growing threat even worse,” says Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU) President Michael Hurley. “Patient safety, and reducing the risk of acquiring and transmitting infection should be the priority, not cutting costs on environmental cleaning,”

Several recent academic studies corroborate what hospital cleaners are experiencing on the ground. One 2014 study noted that cleanliness in hospitals can be characterized as less than optimal. Nearly 40 per cent of respondents did not judge their hospital to be sufficiently clean for infection prevention and control purposes.

Another 2014 study revealed nearly half of Canadian hospital environmental service managers reported that they had enough personnel to satisfactorily clean their hospital. Only 5.2 per cent strongly agreed there were sufficient housekeeping personnel. The study concluded environmental services “staffing deficits mean that the cleaning necessary to prevent and control nosocomial infections will not be accomplished with the requisite frequency and thoroughness.”

CUPE surveys of housekeepers and locals indicate the situation has gotten worse, not better, since the 2014 academic studies through cuts and creeping privatization.

“There is common understanding between the researchers and the environmental cleaning staff in our hospitals that cleanliness must be improved to keep patients safer,” says Hurley. “The evidence indicates that if this was accomplished, then infection rates would decline and fewer people would die.”

Call for Canada’s Green Building Product of the Year

The submission process is open for the 2017 CaGBC Green Building Product of the Year Award, which honours sustainable building products and materials that better support the green building industry.

Product submissions are assessed based on four key areas: sustainability, transparency and verification, innovation, and application. Entrants must be a national CaGBC member to apply, and the product must be manufactured or designed in Canada to be eligible (services and software are not eligible). A jury of experts from across Canada will to decide on this year’s winner. Deadline to submit is February 3, 2017.

“This is our third year recognizing a Green Building Product of the Year, and we expect to see an increasing number of submissions as the demand for sustainable building products grows in Canada,” says CaGBC President and CEO Thomas Mueller. “This award ties into our overall mission of encouraging innovation and getting products with reduced environmental and carbon footprints noticed in the market.”

The top three entrants will be asked to provide a short video about their product that will be shown to delegates at Building Lasting Change 2017, CaGBC’s National Conference and Showcase, taking place this year from May 30 to June 1 at the Vancouver Convention Centre. The winner will be presented with the award at the Leadership Awards Gala in Vancouver on May 31, 2017, in the Ballroom of the Vancouver Convention Centre, West. The winner also gains the right to use the CaGBC Product of the Year crest on its marketing materials and product website. This crest is only available to one winning project each year, making it an exclusive signifier of a truly green product.

The top three entrants of this year’s Awards will also be promoted in the Fall 2017 issue of SAB Magazine and on the CaGBC website. Potential applicants can view the submittal process and more about the Award by visiting the Product of the Year webpage, or by beginning the application process here.

Last year’s winner LiteZone Glass Inc. says winning the 2016 Award was invaluable to their product and their brand.

“This prestigious award shone a light on LiteZone for everyone to see who cares about energy efficiency,” says LiteZone Glass President and CEO Greg Clarahan. “LiteZone achieves ultra high insulating values and extreme longevity that can significantly contribute to a more sustainable future. We can attest that this annual award by CaGBC propels the adoption of new technologies important to achieving greener buildings.

Bergeron Centre a model for fully integrated BIM

It might not have been possible to realize the vision for the Bergeron Centre at York University without building information modelling, or BIM, Paul Stevens said in retrospect. The senior principal at ZAS Architects + Interiors cited the intricate geometry of the 170,000-square-foot facility as having been the biggest risk factor in the project.

“It’s an ovoid building with eight different arcs, so you end up with some fairly complicated structural forming,” he explained. “Added to that is the notion of a ‘cloud’ façade, which is made up of a series of repetitive triangles rotated at different angles.”

The use of fully integrated building information modelling facilitated precise prefabrication and fast-tracked construction of the project, which earned a Canada BIM Council award late last year. The project also paved the way for the process to be adopted as a campus-wide standard at the post-secondary institution.

Patrick Saavedra, director of planning and renovations, campus services and business operations at York University, was behind the push to adopt building information modelling. He imported the process to his native Toronto from Washington, D.C., where he had worked at an architecture, engineering and construction firm that a decade ago was already using BIM in half of its projects.

Saavedra said he saw building information modelling as a way to forge a previously missing link between design and planning and operations and maintenance. The Bergeron Centre was not the first York University project to integrate BIM; it was the natural progression of earlier work.

“Prior to that, we had done maybe 15 BIM projects already of different scales, sizes and complexity, but this was the ultimate test,” he said.

When ZAS entered the design competition for the project, specific requirements for the future home of York University’s new Lassonde School of Engineering were sparse. The fledgling program had few faculty at that point, recalled Stevens.

What was clear was the mandate to fully develop the project with building information modeling, he said. No one on the project team was exempt, not even the landscape architect or the quantity surveyor. All told, the BIM model was actually an amalgamation of 10 BIM designs.

ZAS created the conceptual design using software called Grasshopper and Rhino. From there, the design evolved in greater detail through the application of Revit and a comprehensive information platform that captures data to support operations and maintenance programs.

“That’s where they saw the value in terms of the specific modeling information because Revit has the ability to not only document it technically, but it also gives you the ability to tag or describe the pieces of equipment or the systems that are within the building,” said Stevens.

That gave operations and maintenance staff ready access to data needed for repairs, replacements and service, which might otherwise be captured in drawings or stored off-site, he explained.

The big question was: What information ought to be included in the BIM model? One of the lessons to come out of this project for Saavedra was to involve operations and maintenance staff sooner. The initial instinct, he said, was to include everything, but that would have made the model more cumbersome to manage, especially when staff didn’t need all of those details.

“Our operations and maintenance folks were more interested in the information for preventative maintenance — like how often should you maintain the HVAC system?” Saavedra offered by way of example. “We had to mediate between those needs from the physical to the ‘i’ (information) in BIM for their purposes.”

As for the physical, the modelling allowed for extensive prefabrication to occur off-site, including of the ductwork, HVAC and plumbing, as well as the steel that formed the triangle pattern on the façade of the Bergeron Centre. What’s more, the modelling helped the construction manager to coordinate the arrival and assembly of these materials on site. The resulting efficiencies trimmed two months off the already fast-tracked 24-month timeline.

The new building, opened in September, 2015, doesn’t require much in the way of maintenance at the moment, Saavedra noted. In the meantime, York University has been testing smart tablets and training staff how to work in this new digital environment.

The post-secondary institution also expects to create a new position for a facilitator who will provide continuity from design through construction to operations and maintenance as further BIM projects come online. In the next year alone, a $50-million student centre, a $40-million expansion at the Schulich School of Business and a $30-million renovation of a life sciences building are slated for completion.

The Bergeron Centre created a template for realizing York University’s goal of modernizing operations and maintenance in the digital context, said Saavedra. It’s a template others are interested in replicating, too. Due to the success of the project, members of the project team have received invitations to speak about their experience from organizations across the country, including the University of Calgary and the Government of Nova Scotia.

In Canada, most large constructors have adopted building information modelling, observed Stevens, but some contractors and engineers have been more reluctant to make the leap. ZAS now works exclusively in BIM, including for interior design, a discipline in which the process is just starting to see uptake, he said.

Drawing everything in 3D takes more time upfront, the architect acknowledged, but there are many benefits to be had for those who embrace the process. He isn’t sure whether to attribute it to BIM, but there was one outcome in the Bergeron Centre project that he thought may be the result of the quality control this brings.

“One of the things we heard after the project was finished was … the execution of it in real life looks even better than the models themselves,” said Stevens.

Michelle Ervin is the editor of Canadian Facility Management & Design.

Pictured: The above image merges the design team’s consolidated architectural, structural, MEP and landscape BIM model with a photo of the constructed building by doublespace photography.

Four IBI Group projects receive awards in Q4

IBI Group, the sixth-largest architecture firm in the world, received several industry awards in the fourth quarter of 2016 for four of its Canadian projects.

In downtown Vancouver, the IBI Group-designed Concord Pacific’s One Pacific won Best Urban High-Rise Residential and the Vancouver Sun’s Reader’s Choice Award at the Pacific Region Urban Development Institute (UDI) Awards for Excellence.

“The 20-storey, 435-suite condominium was conceived as a gateway to Vancouver’s urban core,” said Jeff Christianson, IBI project manager, in a press release. “The site incorporates several public initiatives including dedicated pedestrian and bike lanes, street extension and restricted building height to preserve the mountain view from the Cambie Bridge. With two levels of commercial and retail space at ground level, the south-facing public plaza gives a very striking view of the glazed pool cantilevered above.”

The Salient Group’s Trapp+Holbrook development, located in New Westminster, B.C., won a UDI Award for Excellence in Heritage Design. The former Holbrook Building façade was restored on site, while the Trapp Block frontage, previously a commercial building, was restored off-site and reconstructed. IBI Group was the lead architect on the project, supported by heritage consultant Donald Luxton and Associates Inc.

“The project preserves two historic facades in New Westminster’s historic downtown,” said IBI project manager Lauren Macaulay. “It incorporates 196 residential units and revitalized commercial space at grade.”

In Montreal, IBI’s design of Broccolini’s L’Avenue was awarded an INOVA Award from the Quebec Urban Design Institute for Multi-Use Residential (over $50 million). The 50-storey mixed-use tower will be the tallest residential tower in Montreal and was awarded for bringing about revitalization to the downtown core.

In Toronto, Minto Yorkville Park recently won the Ontario Home Builders’ Award of Distinction for Most Outstanding High-Rise. Standing at 26 storeys, IBI Group’s design concept resulted in a unique, organic, sculptural tower, sitting on a stone base designed to accommodate high-end retail shops and boutiques.

“Our team has been involved from the conceptual design phase and will continue through to the substantial completion of the building’s construction,” said IBI project manager Tom Tsaktsiris. “The design process involved the community, including local business associations, the city councillor and staff.”

Companies overrate cybersecurity abilites: survey

A new Accenture security survey, “Building Confidence: Facing the Cybersecurity Conundrum,” indicates that overconfidence may be putting Canadian organizations at higher risk for cyberattacks.

In the past year, the average Canadian company has experienced three effective attacks per month, however, two-thirds of Canadians surveyed felt sure they could protect their enterprises, most of which do not have effective technology in place to monitor for cyberattacks. Compared to the global average, overconfidence is higher in Canada, but this country is also among those who spend the lowest amount of their IT budget on cybersecurity.

“Cyberattacks are a constant operational reality across every industry today and our survey reveals that catching criminal behavior requires more than the best practices and perspectives of the past,” says Russell Thomas, Canadian cybersecurity lead for Accenture “There needs to be a fundamentally different approach to security protection starting with identifying and prioritizing key company assets across the entire value chain.”

Organizations also need to take an “end-to-end approach to digital security” and integrate cyber defense into the whole company, as there are many inconsistencies the survey found.

Respondents say internal breaches have the greatest impact, but 62 per cent prioritize heightened capabilities in perimeter-based controls instead of pivoting to address high-impact internal threats. Meanwhile, 52 per cent of Canadian executives admit it takes months to detect sophisticated breaches, and as many as a third of all successful breaches are not discovered at all by the security team.

Awareness is growing, but the sentiment among respondents suggests Canadian organizations will continue to pursue the same (somewhat meaningless) countermeasures instead of investing in new and different security controls to mitigate threats.

Accenture surveyed 2,000 enterprise security practitioners, including 124 in Canada, representing companies with annual revenues of $1 billion or more in 15 countries about their perceptions of cyber risks, the effectiveness of current security efforts and the adequacy of existing investments.