Edmonton's new office towers are leasing fast
The redeveloped First&Jasper office tower in Edmonton doesn't complete until December, but all 220,000 square feet of its sleek new space has already been leased. The federal government and an engineering firm took the last offices in the GE Capital Real Estate's LEED-rated project, reports Avison Young. The entire building leased up in five months.
The quick take-up reflects a tight market for prime office space in Alberta's capital. Tenants looking for 30,000 square feet or more of contiguous space downtown have only eight options left, and only one offers Class AA space, namely the new EPCOR tower.
The downtown office vacancy rate has fallen to 7.5 per cent, but much of the available offices are in older Class B or even C buildings, Avison Young confirms. And prices are rising.
Rental rates have jumped significantly in the past year, with top-tier space now demanding up to $29 per square foot. Inducement packages, once common, are rare today in Edmonton. There is little new space in the pipeline.
Avison Young notes the Kelly Ramsay building by developer John Day could complete by 2016 with a 12-storey, 280,000-square-foot office tower as part of the mixed-use package.
Challenging the downtown landlords, however, are bright new suburban office campuses that offer high-level lifestyle amenities and lower lease rates than in the core.
New office parks, such as Village at Blackmud Creek and Currents of Windermere, will include daycares, fitness centres, ice rinks, parkland and even canoe ponds, Avison Young notes. Still, it appears most tenants prefer the bustle of downtown: only 36,800 square feet of suburban space was leased in the first half of this year. In the same period, nearly 157,000 square feet of offices leased downtown.
Building permit values double up in Red Deer
Make no mistake about it: the building slowdown in Central Alberta's principal city is over.
The proof is in the numbers from the City of Red Deer.
Those numbers confirm the city's building permit values for the first half of 2012 more than doubled from the same period in 2011, skyrocketing up to $127.9 million from $62.9 million - an increase of 103.6 per cent.
The numbers almost doubled in all major categories, from residential building ($36.8 million to $70.9 million) to industrial structures ($4.5 million to $9.3 million).
Noted John Sennema, land and economic development manager for the city: "2012 has been an outstanding year so far, and we are confident that this trend will continue for the rest of the year."
That's a reasonable prediction, given that 99 per cent of the residential lots in the new Garden Heights subdivision were snapped up within hours of availability when they hit the market in the spring.
As well, the city is proceeding with Phase 2 of Queens Business Park ahead of schedule due to increased lot demand in the project, which sits to the west of Highway 2.
Major permits approved in June included one for a $7.8 million grocery store on Clearview Market Way in the city's northeast quadrant.
Booming Airdrie takes breather
While the numbers are hot in 2012 in Red Deer, growth has cooled slightly to the south in Airdrie, though what constitutes slower growth in Airdrie is still a boom almost anywhere else.
Officials in the Calgary suburb confirmed new census data for their city in July, and the numbers peg the new Airdrie population at 45,711, an increase of 5.92 per cent over 2011.
While that kind of growth would send heads spinning in some planning and development departments, it was actually a decline from 8.37 per cent between 2010 and 2011.
"This growth rate gives us some breathing room," said Mayor Peter Brown, adding, "Opportunities and challenges come with a steady growth rate. For example, our new fire stations and the police building were built to serve a larger future community, so a manageable growth rate is good news."
According to the census data, Airdrie added 1,097 new homes between 2011 and 2012.
Police campus to cost $122M
After years of waiting, Fort Macleod residents now have a much better idea of what they can expect to see in their community two years from now.
That's a when construction crews will be putting finishing touches on the new Alberta Public Security and Law Enforcement Training Centre on the edge of their southern downtown.
The design for the police training centre was revealed this summer. It is the work of a team led by Enzo Vicenzino, senior principal at Stantec Architecture Ltd., with construction by Bird-Design Construction Inc.
According to the Fort Macleod Gazette, an estimated 1,350 police and peace officer recruits will be trained each year at the new facility, beginning in September 2014. The training centre will cover about 340 acres just off Highway 2 south, which was donated to the project by the Town of Fort Macleod.
Construction of the training centre is expected to cost about $95 million. The total project budget is $122 million.
The design includes everything from accommodations and classrooms to a car track area where police trainees can learn pursuit techniques.
– Compiled by Dave Husdal
from Western Investor September 2012
