INTERNATIONAL: Brookfield Canada Grabs Brookfield Place Calgary East Tower

By Balazs Szekely, Associate Editor

Brookfield Canada Office Properties (BOX) has bought the Brookfield Place Calgary development’s east tower. Parent company Brookfield Property Partners L.P. (BPY) sold the property on an “as-if-completed-and-stabilized basis” and will retain development obligations including construction, lease-up and financing, according to a recently released written announcement.

Brookfield Place Calgary is a full-block commercial development located between 1st & 2nd Streets and 6th & 7th Avenues SW in downtown Calgary. Plans include two office towers totaling 2.4 million square feet, a 60-foot-high transparent glass pavilion, a half-acre lit public plaza, several retail shops and restaurants, street-level amenities and an underground parking for 1,100 cars. Constructed to a high standard of sustainability, the development will include electric vehicle recharge stations as well as a bike parking facility accessible through dedicated bicycle ramps.

The east tower is a 56-story, 1.4 million-square-foot premier office building currently under construction, which upon completion will be the tallest building in western Canada with its height of over 810 feet. The tower is 71% pre-leased to the anchor tenant, Cenovus. The North American oil company will occupy 1 million square feet.

The development is expected to achieve the LEED Gold standard for Core & Shell development, with completion of the east tower targeted in late 2017.

BOX acquired the asset based on a value of $902 million at stabilization, $851.15 million net of an imputed return on the company’s equity investment. At closing, BOX will pay $207.25 million to BPY through available liquidity, representing the amount invested and value created to date in the project. BOX will also commit to fund $81.13 million of equity and an additional $507 million funded from a first mortgage construction loan. In addition, BOX will make a final payment to BPY of $56.44 million on stabilization for an aggregate total investment of $851.9 million. BOX’s board of trustees established an independent committee to assess the transaction and the committee unanimously recommended the board of trustees’ approval. The committee retained MPA Morrison Park Advisors Inc. as its financial advisor.