Overview presentations on office, retail and industrial leasing activity in the Calgary and Edmonton markets for the first three quarters of 2006. What the major trends? What were some of the most significant transactions? How much new space is anticipated for 2007? What are the anticipated absorption rates? What are the profiles of the tenants that are looking for space? What are the resulting implications for leasing activity in 2007 and beyond?
Moderator:
Greg Kwong, Managing Director, CB Richard Ellis Alberta Ltd.
Panel:
Angus Fraser – Vice President, CB Richard Ellis Alberta Ltd.
Chris Thompson – Vice President, CB Richard Ellis Alberta Ltd.
Marshall Toner – Vice President, CB Richard Ellis Alberta Ltd.
Dave Young – Managing Director Edmonton, CB Richard Ellis Alberta Ltd.
This panel will discuss and explain the latest practices and differences in rights of expansion, rights of contraction, early termination, rights of first refusal, rights of first offer and other real estate leasing tools. What are tenants asking for and why?
Both landlords and tenants are trying to build flexibility, and control, into their leasing arrangements. This session will examine the issue of early termination rights, rights of first offer, rights of first refusal, restrictive covenants and other customizations required by tenants and landlords. How can competing interests co-exist?
How are Landlords accommodating the demand for tenant flexibility opposite the need to have future leasing flexibility?
How do lenders and prospective new tenants react to tainted space? What management tools are available to help Landlords to keep track, and how effective are they? When should these tools be used, and when refused? What’s new and dangerous? What dangers have gone away?
Panel:
Samuel Durante, Partner, Macleod Dixon LLP
Greg Liakopoulos, Oxford Properties Group
An examination the most common trends in leasing industrial property in Calgary and Edmonton. What are the major differences in leasing space for warehousing and logistics vs. for manufacturing and other processing purposes? Have the standards for industrial leases of environmental compliance increased along with the need for exit reports? Is the demand for sale leasebacks growing or is it a rather limited trend? To what extent have the increasing costs of construction and the rising price of industrial land affected build-to-suit activity in Calgary and Edmonton? What impact have these trends had on lease rates?
Moderator:
Cindy Dubray, Leasing Manager, Morguard Investments Ltd.
Panel:
Jeff Buziak, Vice President, Avison Young Commercial
Murray DeGirolamo, Vice President Industrial, Western Canada, Hopewell Development Corporation
Kelly Risdon, Leasing Manager, Dundee Realty Management Corporation
This session will examine the often-thorny issue of operating cost charge backs in a net lease and where the difficulties lie with this practice.
Charge-backs are one of the most negotiated issues in lease negotiations, and the most audited item in a tenant audit. Discussion will cover current practice among owners with respect to new cost areas, and other typical items that tenants are concerned about in reviewing additional rent charges. Does the concept of fixing common area maintenance (CAM) costs make sense? What costs are relatively controllable, e.g. can be fixed? Is there a challenge in allocating costs in a mixed-use building? What is the language of a good and a bad audit clause, including how to settle audits, the timing and the process?
How frequently are landlords of office and retail space being audited by their tenants? What are their experiences and policies with respect to lease audits? Some landlords will not agree to allow a third party who is paid on a contingency basis to do the audit rather than consultants who are paid on an hourly rate basis. What are the issues with these approaches?
Moderator:
Mark Kolke, President, MaxComm Realty Advisors Inc.
Panel:
Alan Rivait, Director of Leasing, Western Region, Ivanhoe Cambridge
Murray Tait, Vice President & Corporate Counsel, T & T Properties
Deborah Watkins, Partner, Daoust Vukovich LLP
The session will open with a very brief overview of the comparative office leasing trends in the downtown cores, suburbs and other sub-markets in Calgary and Edmonton. How much unoccupied space is there currently on the market? What is happening to net rents? What are projected long term rent trends? What will likely happen in 2007? How are landlords dealing with the pricing structure for non-energy related companies, e.g. financial services, technology?
To what extent are tenants pushing the demand for greener building environments? Are there really higher costs and, if so, can they be justified? Can the quality of facilities contribute to retaining and recruiting key employees? Do greener buildings enhance occupant productivity and lower operating costs? What implications do green buildings have on leases? How can tenants find cost certainty and flexibility under the current very tight market conditions?
Moderator:
Sandy McNair, President, Altus InSite
Panel:
Chris Howard, General Manager, Calgary West Business Unit, Aspen Properties Ltd.
Blair Sinclair, Senior Vice President, Tonko Realty Advisors Ltd.
Shaun Wuschke, Vice President Leasing, Bentall Real Estate Services
How are owners and tenants addressing toxic mould, asbestos abatement, potential pandemics and other environmental and health risk issues in their leases. What are the significant environmental regulations and liabilities that building owners must be aware of? How are leases dealing with toxic mould related issues inside the building envelope? What kind of environmental insurance and strategies are owners and tenants using in this regard? How should insurance clauses be drafted to cover off these risks? Some discussion will also focus on the challenges of dealing with the environmental aspects in the case of industrial, retail or office developments on brownfield sites. What are the insurance challenges for these types of properties?
Panel:
George Boire, Senior Vice President of Environmental Solutions, Marsh Canada
John Singleton, QC, Partner, Singleton Urquart
Elia Sterling, President, Theodor Sterling Associates
What is happening to leasing practices and administration in a tight rental market? Are landlords and tenants prepared to forego certain steps and procedures in their need to secure space and to do so as quickly as possible? Are tenant lease negotiations still starting with a non-binding letter of intent or are they moving to a formal Offer to Lease? Or are landlords and tenants proceeding directly to a lease? What the pros and cons of each approach? How are owners and tenants managing leasehold improvements in the tight market given the unpredictability of construction costs? Dates are taking on an exceptional importance in this rising market since time is of the essence more than ever before.
Panel:
Brad Krizan, Director of Leasing, OPUS Building Canada Inc.
Don Goyan, Manager Retail Leasing, Hopewell Development Corporation
Karen Louise Price, Manager, Legal Services, Oxford Properties Group
Stephen Raby, Partner, Macleod Dixon LLP
This session will examine some key negotiating strategies and techniques that tenants and brokers should consider using in a landlord driven environment. How are owners behaving as buildings approach full occupancy? How do they deal with conflicts? Are early tenant renewals available? How do landlords perceive themselves? How do tenants perceive themselves? What value could lawyers and brokers bring to the landlord, to the tenant and to the overall process in a tight market? What are the typical discussion points that should be easily resolvable in lease negotiation and what are the arguments used to reach the middle ground? How long should it take to finalize a deal? How will a landlord deal with a bully tenant who just can’t be satisfied? How should a tenant deal with a bully landlord that won’t compromise?
Panel:
Cameron Black, Vice President, Legal, Brookfield Properties
Andrew MacLachlan, Vice President, J.J. Barnicke Calgary Inc.
Beth Vogel, Attorney, Burnet Duckworth Palmer
This session will focus on some of the major trends and issues in retail real estate leasing from both the landlords’ and the tenants’ perspectives. What impact is consolidation in both the landlord as well as the tenant sector having on retail leasing? Given the blurring of retail lines between food and drugs, how are some landlords responding to this trend, e.g. elimination of exclusive use clauses and non-competes or restrictive covenants? In retail real estate, what are some of the ways in which landlords are adding value in the leasing process? What impact might the trend towards lifestyle centres vs. power centres have on future trends in retail leasing? Are lease audits on the rise? Does realtime tenant access to tenant operating cost data avoid lease audits? Who is doing this now? Will the emergence of gross leases reduce the need for lease audits?
Panel:
Angela Wilhelm, Leasing Manager, Deerfoot Meadows
Scott Stoddart, Senior Retail Agent, Cushman & Wakefield Lepage Inc.
Richard Dawson, Q.C., Partner, Blake, Cassels & Graydon
This session will explore methods of not only assessing initial tenant covenant quality but also how to monitor that covenant quality over the life of the lease. A covenant could be depleted without the landlord knowing it over the term of a lease through reduced profitability, lawsuits, rising interest rates or many other factors. What creative methods can be used to provide financial security to the landlord in the face of an eroding tenant covenant?
What back up measures can and should be used to improve covenant quality, such as the use of guarantors, indemnifiers and financial security? Which methods work the best and what are the pitfalls of each? This panel will also explore current problems in dealing with a bankrupt tenant, and ways in which leases may be able to be structured to minimize these problems from a landlord’s perspective.
Panel:
Terry Adams, Manager, Lease Administration, Bentall Real Estate Services
Doug Nishimura, Lawyer, Burnett, Duckworth & Palmer
Today’s office, retail and industrial real estate market is comprised of a diverse group of building owners and landlords – from REITs to pension fund and their advisors, from passive equity investors to privately owned companies, from corporations to private individuals and their families. As a result, the range of asset management and leasing policies, styles, practices, and processes can be quite considerable.
This roundtable discussion among senior executives will examine how leasing strategies, policies and approvals can be influenced and differ among various types of owners and asset management decision-making models. The following are some of the questions that they will address:
Moderator:
Christopher Ridabock, President, J.J. Barnicke Calgary Inc.
Panel:
Randy Cameron, Senior Vice President, Western Canada, Dundee REIT
Kevin Pshebniski, President, Hopewell Development Corporation
David Wyatt, National Vice President, Retail Leasing, Redcliff Realty Management Inc.