of Capital Interest
Produced by Juteau Johnson Comba Inc.
Real Estate Advisors and Appraisers
2255 St. Laurent Boulevard, Suite 340
Ottawa, Ontario
K1G 4K3
Phone 613-738-2426
Fax 613-738-0429

A Word from the Editor John Comba

There was a flurry of activity at the end of the year as can be seen from the number of sales that closed. Now onto a summary of the sales that occurred in December.

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SALES

We finally have a sale of a newly constructed OFFICE building in the Kanata market. In fact we have two plus one that was under construction. PBX Properties Ltd. purchased a 75% interest in 350 Palladium Drive, 1 Hines Road and 700 Silver Seven Road from a local developer. The building at 1 Hines Road is 49,906 sq.ft. in size and was purchased at $6,475,000 (adjusted to 100%) or $130/sq.ft. It was fully leased to two tenants. The building at 350 Palladium Drive is 25,384 sq.ft. in size and was purchased for $3,050,000 (adjusted for 100%) or $120/sq.ft. The third building is located to the immediate north of 350 Palladium Drive at 700 Silver Seven Road. It is under construction and the purchase price is a reflection of the costs in place.

An 11-storey office building in the downtown core at 360 Laurier Avenue West was sold by the Manufacturers Life Insurance Company to Bank Street Investments for $7,500,000 or $70/sq.ft. The building was 100% leased under a number of federal government leases.

A one-story office building at 134 York Street was sold by CHEZ-Fm to 1436699 Ontario Inc. for $1,350,000 or $128/sq.ft. of building area.

A three and a half-storey office building located at 54 Chamberlain Avenue was sold by Stittsville Flea Market Inc. to 1436946 Ontario Inc. for $632,000 or $104/sq.ft.

A three-storey office building in the Ottawa Business Park at 2465 St. Laurent Boulevard was sold by Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada to 1437038 Ontario Inc. for $4,650,000 or $74/sq.ft including the full basement level. This building is 100% leased to JDS Uniphase

99 Rideau Street, a two-storey RETAIL/office building with a ground floor interior mall and second floor offices was sold by Standard Trust Company in Liquidation to Crerar Investment Corporation, for $2,000,000 or $119/sq.ft.

A two-storey heritage house at 10 Cedarow Court outside of Stittsville that is used as a restaurant was sold by 1146511 Ontario Inc. to Alekona Ventures Inc. for $610,000 or $146/sq.ft.

Loblaws continues to purchase property in the Ottawa area. Their latest purchase was the 30,357 square feet of retail space on Place d'Orleans beside their store. The vendor was Orleans Town Centre Inc. and the purchase price was $6,450,000 0r $212/sq.ft.

A small neighborhood plaza at 4000 Bridle Path Drive was sold by Neighborhood Centre Ltd. to Inter Habitation Inc. for $750,000 or $106/sq.ft.

An 11unit APARTMENT building at 127 Second Avenue in the Glebe was sold by Munir & Yasmin Sheikh, Samy Hahmoud and Maha Jabi to Beland Cohen & Leff Capital Assets Corp. for $750,000 or $68,182/unit.

GT Holdings Ottawa Ltd. sold a 12 unit building at 1885 Carling Avenue to Najon Holdings Inc. for $687,500 or $57,292/unit.

An older INDUSTRIAL building at 3 Hamilton Avenue was sold by Honeywell Ltd. to Spencedale Properties Ltd. for $825,000 or $22/sq.ft. of building area.

An 11,500 square foot industrial building at 19 Stafford Road was sold by Curb Investments Ltd. to 19 Stafford Inc. for $1,325,000 or $115/sq.ft.

An industrial building and gas bar at 631-635 Industrial Avenue were sold by 3078612 Canada Inc. to Pioneer Petroleums Management Inc. for $500,000 or $40/sq.ft. of building area. Sold by Facilities Commercial Realty.

The National Capital Commission sold a 49,000 sq.ft industrial building on a 16.04 acre site to 2000188 Ontario Inc. for $2,200,000. The property is located at 3091 Albion Road.

A bowling lane at 435 Donald Street was sold by Laurentian Bank of Canada to Centre Franco-Ontarien de Ressources Pedagogiques for $550,000 or $28/sq.ft. of building area.

There continued to be strong demand for vacant LAND.

The City of Ottawa sold a 2.646 acre site on Coventry Road to Robert Vocisano for $1,600,000 or $604,686/acre.

The Township of Goulbourn in one of their last acts sold an 8.7 acre site on Iber Road to 909979 Alberta Ltd. for $652,500 or $75,000/acre.

Zena Investment Corporation purchased a 1.447 acre site on Jamie Avenue from Grant P. McDonald Holdings Inc. for $510,000 or $352,453/acre. They are an adjoining property owner.

A 10.413 acre site at the northeast corner of Merivale Road and Viewmount Drive was sold by Minto Developments Inc. to First Viewmount Shopping Centre Ltd. for $4,819,688 or $462,853/acre. This site is to be developed with a new retail development.

The Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton purchased a 262 acre site from a group of investors on Huntmar Road in the former City of Kanata. The purchase price was $890,000 or $3,400/acre. The site was purchased to conserve some wetlands.

DCR/Phonenix Holding Corp. purchased a 16.7 acre site on Montreal Road from Les Filles de la Sagesse d'Ontario for $960,000 or $57,485/acre.

Nortel Networks continues to purchase land in the Terry Fox Business Park. Their most recent purchase was a 7.5 acre site from 764703 Ontario Inc. for $2,209,550 or $295,000/acre.

Lastly, the National Capital Commission sold a 2.306 acre site on Sussex Drive on the Ottawa River to the AGA Khan Foundation for $5,243,425 or $52.20/sq.ft.

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NEWS

Royal LePage has also released their year-end office, retail and industrial vacancy surveys. These can all be viewed in PDF format at www.royallepage3.com under publications. The vacancy rate for office space in this survey is at 2.0% with all of the western suburbs having an overall rate of only 1.0%.

The industrial report indicated an overall rate of only 1.8% with three of the markets having no space. These are Morrison/Queensview, South Gloucester/Albion and Orleans. Royal LePage indicated that the 1.8% level was an all-time low for the Ottawa market.

Lastly, the year-end retail survey has added an average asking price by neighborhood for retail malls. I think this a useful feature, especially for us who are always looking for free information. The overall vacancy rate is now at 3.2%, which is down from 5.7% in June of 2000.

According to the Ottawa-Carleton Real Estate Board, Ottawa had another record-breaking year with 12,262 residential units sold last year as comparable to 11,329 the year before. The average price ended the year at $159,511, 6.6% higher than the previous year.

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