Ivanhoé Cambridge is selling Vancouver’s Oakridge Centre to QuadReal Property Group but terms of the deal are not being released, QuadReal announced January 25.
QuadReal is owned by Vancouver’s British Columbia Investment Management Corp. (bcIMC) while Ivanhoé Cambridge is owned by Quebec’s Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec.
This is the second time that a major institutional investor has sold a stake in a Vancouver mall in as many weeks.
CF Cadillac Fairview, which is owned by the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan, announced January 20 that it is selling a 50% stake in Pacific Centre to the Ontario Pension Board and Ontario’s Worksafe and Insurance Board. That transaction also involved 12 Vancouver office properties.
What is curious about the transaction is that Oakridge Centre and Pacific Centre are also the two top-producing malls in B.C., ranked by sales per square foot. They are also the No. 2 and No. 3 most productive malls in Canada.
“With a productivity of $1,537 per square foot, Oakridge surpasses busy CF Pacific Centre, and is second only to Toronto’s Yorkdale Shopping Centre,” said retail analyst and Retail Insider Media owner Craig Patterson, who did research on the study for the Retail Council of Canada.
“Ivanhoé Cambridge’s divesting of this property could be a smart move as there is considerable redevelopment potential for the site. QuadReal Property Group is buying one of Canada’s top malls,” Patterson told Business in Vancouver on January 25.
Oakridge is B.C.'s 15th largest shopping centre, ranked by its 573,920 square feet, according to BIV's 2016 list of the largest shopping centres in the province.
QuadReal has selected Vancouver developer Westbank to partner on a potential Oakridge redevelopment. Some of Westbank’s best known local projects include the Woodwards redevelopment, the Fairmont Pacific Rim, Telus Garden and Vancouver House.
Oakridge has been subject to redevelopment talks for most of the past decade. Ivanhoé Cambridge most recently scaled back plans for a $1.5 billion redevelopment in January 2016 after it said that it had discovered an aquifer flowing beneath the site.
"The opportunity to acquire a flagship retail property and development project of such quality is rare," said Remco Daal, who is president of QuadReal's Canadian real estate division.
"Retailers and their customers gravitate to the best locations and Oakridge, an urban gem at the hub of popular transportation and transit networks, perfectly fits this profile.”
To read a BIV profile of Remco Daal from December 2016, click here .
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