The 2021 versions of REALPAC's normalization methodologies for calculating energy- and water-use intensity address issues arising from the COVID-19 pandemic and lower occupant densities in office buildings.

Removing landlords from the application process hasn’t necessarily made the Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy (CERS) more accessible for commercial tenants experiencing pandemic-related financial stress.

Retrofit proponents unable to contribute at least $6.25 million in equity capital will have to look to third-party interveners in order to tap into the Canada Infrastructure Bank’s $2-billion fund for commercial buildings.

Cold storage facilities are flagged to deliver robust returns to investors due to the evolution of food retailing, demand for vaccines and other pharmaceuticals, and the thriving outlook for the warehouse/distribution and logistics sector in general.

Electricity demand projections through the vaccination rollout period should take two contradictory factors into account, energy management specialists affirm.

After a year of operational upheaval and more modifications to electricity pricing policies, BOMA Toronto’s annual workshop to address the complexities of the global adjustment had a lot of ground to cover.

Economic fallout from COVID-19 is shifting more of the tax burden to this flourishing group of assets via the mill rate, while also driving up the tax rate, for a double-whammy of consequences in jurisdictions that update valuations annually.

Reflecting on a year in which the pandemic unsettled market fundamentals to the east and to the west, Calgary-based analysts focus more on tangential circumstances than the COVID-19 outbreak itself.

An influx of new office supply was always expected to shake up the status quo in the downtown Toronto market given that approximately two-thirds of the 8+ million square feet of space currently under construction is already preleased.

The flat license rate will penalize mid-rise and high-rise owners with extra costs if an elevator passes the periodic inspection and does not require a follow-up. It will be a bargain if just one follow-up inspection is required.

Canadian commercial real estate assets are comparatively less exposed to the dire physical threats that extreme weather poses or has already served up in other global regions.

A ten-year run of capital growth abruptly reversed, resulting in a 7.8 per cent loss of value across the 2,356 assets that the 44 portfolios represented in the Canada Annual Property Index hold.

Newly released 2020 investment results find industrial and multifamily assets on the positive side of the national average total return for 2,356 directly held standing assets, which registered -4.1 per cent.

Commercial real estate investors, owners and managers are acknowledging that entrenched social inequities undermine their workforces, their tenants and the value of their portfolios.

Although they increasingly rely on professional service providers to keep up with the complexities of compliance, owners/managers ultimately carry the responsibility for life safety and bear the brunt of enforcement.

Fittingly for 2020, both nominations for the Canadian Online Publishing Awards are tied to reporting how the property and facilities management sectors responded to the challenges of COVID-19.

Multifamily and industrial properties are routinely lumped together as favoured investment assets, but asset managers face divergent degrees of difficulty when they seek to mine value from energy performance.