Business in Winnipeg

[flatlander]

Originally Posted by 1ajs

nothing about polics?

Pollack's?

[newflyer]

Hecla resort to reopen
$20-M redevelopment includes wellness centre, spa
Thu Jan 10 2008

By Larry Kusch



Artist’s rendering of Hecla Oasis Resort, billed as a five-star luxury destination. The revamped hotel will start taking guests sometime next month.
A $20-million redevelopment and expansion of the former Gull Harbour Resort on Hecla Island is nearly complete, its new owners say, with the revamped hotel set to accept its first guests in more than two years sometime next month.

"Everything has been redone," said Maria Paletta, director of sales and marketing with the Paletta Group, which bought the complex from the province for an undisclosed price in 2005.

Before the sale, the resort had accumulated $9 million in debt after losing money for years. The new version, billed as a five-star luxury destination, will have far more amenities, including a wellness centre and spa, a water park, more restaurant choices and "pet friendly" rooms and services.

It will also have a full-time biologist who will lead eco and cultural adventure tours.

"We're really excited; it's going to be worth the wait," Paletta said in an interview Wednesday.

The Hecla Oasis Resort was to have opened last year, but a shortage of construction workers, due to a Manitoba building boom, delayed completion of the project, she said.

The facility will employ 50 to 60 people, with another 30 to 40 seasonal staff looking after the resort's 18-hole golf course.

"The vision that we have for Hecla is really setting it apart from the other resorts as being a health and wellness destination for Manitoba and across Canada," Paletta said.

'Ideal location'

She said the resort has joined forces with the Winnipeg-based Wildwood Consulting Group, which will provide corporate retreats on such topics as leadership development and dealing with workplace stress.

"Being outdoors and being with nature around us at Hecla, it's quite an ideal location to do that type of programming," Paletta said.

The new owners have hired a chef trained in France, with experience in several European countries, most recently in Italy. "He's just finalizing restaurant menus, and banquet menus," Paletta said.

The resort is hiring workers, but it's facing a temporary staff housing shortage. Construction workers are occupying the staff digs as they rush to put the finishing touches on the complex, Paletta said.

"Most of the major infrastructure is complete. It's just getting some furniture in, cleaning everything up and finetuning everything," she said.

Paletta said the hotel will have what the industry calls "a soft opening" in mid- to late February "if all goes well."

The water park and spa and one of the resort's three eating establishments -- a 'spa cafe' -- probably won't open until late spring or early summer.

"What we will have for the soft opening are the guest rooms, the two restaurants, the lobby and, of course, starting in May, the golf."

The Paletta Group also owns the Clarion Hotel and the Days Inn on McPhillips Street. It is also a partner, along with the Tribal Councils Investment Group, in the Radisson Hotel on Portage Avenue.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca


WHAT'S NEW AT THE HECLA RESORT:


* A spa and wellness centre for mind and body, which will also offer corporate retreats on workplace stress, leadership and other topics.

* Three restaurants, including a fine-dining establishment, a family restaurant and a spa cafe featuring 'more healthy fare.'

* Two waterslides, indoor and outdoor pools plus a Viking ship play structure in the outdoor water park.

* A biologist on staff full-time, year round, who will be in charge of the resort's outdoor recreation program, including eco and adventure tours of the island and other nearby areas.

* Fourteen pet-friendly rooms and a pet day spa with grooming, day care, 'special activities,' and on-staff walkers.

* Complete makeover of hotel's rooms. There will be 34 standard rooms, 34 deluxe rooms and 22 suites.

* The new owners will continue to maintain the resort's 18-hole golf course, which has been recognized as one of the Top 100 in Canada.

[newflyer]

I heard that Safeway is moving out of Polo Park in the near future... and relocating to a larger new store in Madison Square.

I also heard Polo Park will release big plans for the safeway space, as well as the old arena sight soon.

[dennis]

^
Makeover for Madison Square
Hooters gets the boot to make room for Safeway
Mon Jan 7 2008

By Murray McNeill

THE Madison Square Shopping Plaza is undergoing a multi-million-dollar redevelopment that will see Hooters hitting the road to make room for a new Safeway store.

Canada Safeway spokesman John Graham confirmed the grocery retailer will be closing its 22-year-old, 39,900-square-foot outlet in Polo Park Shopping Centre and replacing it with a new, 49,000-square-foot "lifestyle store" in the nearby Madison Square on Ness Avenue.

To make room for the Safeway store, expected to open in early 2009, the retail space in the western half of Madison Square is being demolished. Two retail tenants -- Sushi Train and Scholar's Choice -- are moving across to the east side of the plaza, but there was no room for two others -- Hooters Restaurant and Shoe Warehouse. So they have to find new homes.

Hooters general manager Cindy Isfjord said the popular eatery has until the end of April to move, but has already found a new site in the Polo Park area.

"It's not far from here, but I can't say where," she said, adding an announcement will be made within the next couple of months.

Shoe Warehouse is also staying in the neighbourhood. District supervisor Michel Coté said the Madison Square store closed on Dec. 29 and a new 5,000-square-foot outlet will be opening this week -- probably Wednesday -- in a strip mall at Ellice Avenue and Empress Street.

Coté said the retailer had been in Madison Square for a decade and wanted to maintain a store in the area.

"It's a good area. There's a lot of retail here."

Madison Square developer Michael Nozick, of Fairweather Properties Inc., said Safeway's desire to relocate to the plaza -- the two parties had been working on a deal for several years -- was the catalyst for redeveloping the 24-year-old retail/office complex. But an upgrade was probably due anyway.

"When something is getting to be 25 years old, it starts to look dated," he said. "It was the right thing at the right time for everyone."

Nozick said more than $20 million is being spent on the redevelopment if you include the cost of building the new Safeway store. Graham pegged that at between $5 million and $10 million.

"It's a complete redevelopment," Nozick said. "We're putting a new facade on (the east side) and giving the thing a whole new look."

He said redevelopment of the east side got underway a couple of months ago. Demolition of the west side began about two weeks ago and should be complete by early spring.

Graham said work on the Safeway store will likely get underway in the second quarter of this year and will take six months to complete.

The closing of Safeway's Polo Park outlet will free up 39,900 square feet of space in the city's largest regional shopping mall, which recently underwent a $30-million, 20,000-square-foot expansion.

Mall manager Deborah Green said while Polo Park officials will be sorry to lose a high-profile tenant like Safeway, "we also see it as an opportunity for the mall to redevelop."

She said Polo Park should have no trouble filling the space because it has a waiting list of retailers, including some that would be new to the Winnipeg market, who want to be in the centre of the mall.

She said mall officials haven't decided what kind of retailers they'd like to put there. Another large grocery store is unlikely because their preference is for stand-alone stores. So the space will likely be subdivided.

Green said she wouldn't mind seeing a small "green grocer" move in, or a bakery or fruit shop.

"There are lots of things we can do," she said, adding they'll likely have a redevelopment plan in place in about six months.

Graham said replacing the Polo Park location with a stand-alone store is part of Safeway's "big-picture plan" to renovate or replace all of its Canadian stores by the end of 2009. The Manitoba portion of the plan got underway in 2004, and 23 of the chain's 34 stores have now been remodelled or replaced.

He said Safeway officials decided to replace the Polo Park store because there was no room to expand it or to add some of the key features it wants in its new "lifestyle stores." That includes things like a Starbuck's coffee shop, an expanded organic foods section, an expanded deli/take-home-meals department and full-service seafood and meat departments.

Parking was also a factor. Graham said consumers like to park close to the store and that often isn't possible at Polo Park.

Having a stand-alone store also allows for longer hours, Graham said, rather than having to close when the mall closes.

While Safeway has been moving towards more stand-alone stores, Graham said there are no plans to replace its other mall outlets because parking is not a problem at those locations.

Nozick said when the redevelopment is complete, Madison Square will have 11 or 12 retail tenants. He said luring Safeway there, which was done with the help of commercial realtor Derek Chartier of C.B. Richard Ellice Chartier & Associates, is great news for the other retail tenants in the plaza.

"When you have a quality grocer/supermarket... you have a consistent, heavy flow of traffic to the site," he said. "And what that does is it brings traffic to all of the other tenants on a regular basis. They're just thrilled."

He said the office building in the plaza, which is fully occupied, won't be undergoing any changes.

[1ajs]

Investment tax credit fills bill
Boat, trailer maker likes province's plan
Thu Jan 10 2008


MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS

Hi-Tech owner Johann Sigurdson, inside prototype for a custom off-road ambulance, says investment program could meet his company’s needs.
NO government, regardless of the political persuasion of the party in power, is ever going to introduce programming that will change the fundamentals of the economy (nor should voters allow that to happen).

The recent introduction of a 30-per-cent tax credit for investments in privately owned small and medium-sized enterprises is about as far as government can go to provide an incentive for investing in the economy.

Few will dispute that small business produces the majority of new jobs and most of the new enterprise that a growing economy requires, so a healthy small-business sector must be important for the economic well-being of the region.

The global economy has created an international flow of capital, but it stands to reason that it applies only to large pools of capital and that regional small businesses are essentially cut off from that network.

So where does a company like Hi-Tech Fabricators turn after it has exhausted the resources of friends and family? The Canadian banking system is an excellent source of credit, but not for equity or risk capital to grow a business.

Johann Sigurdson, owner of Hi-Tech, a custom aluminum boat and trailer manufacturer, said he believes the new provincial investment tax credit might be a perfect vehicle for his company to raise money.

"This is exactly the thing a company like ours could use," he said.

In business for about 25 years, Sigurdson recently invested in new technology that allows it to out-source some production to lower-cost suppliers.


He has streamlined operations, moved into Winnipeg from Selkirk to be closer to distribution and supplier networks, and is looking to increase dramatically in size.

"In the past our main concern has been producing our orders fast enough," he said. "We're looking for $500,000 to $1 million in new equity to double or triple in size."

For a company to seek investment from people outside the orbit of friends and family requires a complicated, risky, time-consuming process for both the company seeking the investment and the investors.

Ken Cooper is managing partner of the Winnipeg Angel Organization, a group of about 30 high-net-worth individuals and professional investors who collectively vet investment proposals in a private, online format.

Cooper said the new investment tax credit is almost exactly the kind of legislation his group has been pushing for for more than two years.

"The fact is that it is very hard to do (small-scale) private equity investment," he said. "It is so much easier to invest in a company whose shares trade on the stock market."

Buying and selling stocks is as easy as pointing and clicking your computer mouse.

But, again, if you assume that a healthy small and medium-sized business group is important to the economy, then it makes sense to somehow make it easier to invest in those companies, too.

"This (tax credit) can provide the kind of assistance to get people interested in private equity investing," Cooper said.

On top of the risk and liquidity issues -- investing in small businesses is inherently more risky than in large, more established businesses, and without the benefit of a structured market to buy or sell shares there will always be liquidity challenges -- there is the matter of due diligence.

The new program requires a minimum $20,000 investment and is not eligible for an RRSP tax deduction, so it is essentially limited to sophisticated investors who must do their own research on the company they are investing in.

The province has budgeted $5 million in tax credits for the program in the first year. It is ambitious, but probably scaled appropriately. The B.C. provincial budget is four times the size of Manitoba's and its investment-capital program, the primary model for Manitoba's, has a $17-million budget; that program is over-subscribed halfway through the year.

The Manitoba government is undoubtedly gun-shy when it comes to investment tax credits, what with the post-Crocus hangover it has endured for three years already. That is probably partly why it is rolling out this new scheme without a lot of fanfare.

But if the capital markets in Manitoba work the way they are supposed to, the business and investment community will find out what it needs to know quick enough.

[wags_in_the_peg]

cneter venture , downtown biz, someone should be trying to get HOOTERS to move downtown. A+B building, in the rbc once it moves to hydro, somewhere!!!! most people that go to hooters are young male and females. it would be packed pre/post events at mts centre and would draw a decent lunch time crowd from all the office workers.

[drew]

^ I read somewhere they had already chosen their new location, and although it was being kept "secret", the property is apparently still in the Polo Park area...

[newflyer]

Originally Posted by drew

^ I read somewhere they had already chosen their new location, and although it was being kept "secret", the property is apparently still in the Polo Park area...

I expect they are waiting to see if the new Bomber Stadium goes through ... if so they will find a temp location until its done... if not than they'll have a second long term location picked out... look for it in the soon to be annouced PoloPark development at the arena site.

[1ajs]

the downtown youngs location is set to reopen soon...

[newflyer]

Originally Posted by 1ajs

the downtown youngs location is set to reopen soon...

What is Youngs?

[Boreal]

Ethnic food market of considerable size. It burnt down a year or two ago. Or perhaps burnt out is a more appropriate term. Their other location was on McPhillips near to McPhillipis Street Station.

...At least, I am hopeful that is what Adrian is talking about.

[1ajs]

Originally Posted by newflyer

What is Youngs?

you remeber that hudge fire on william a cuple years ago? with the 2million dallors in the basement?

[newflyer]

It is often questioned on this forum why Winnipeg doesn't seem to attract the level of development it should. Others opening question why the sea of surface lots aren't developed, which I often answer that the markets forces are in equalibrium .. and if we want more development steps need to be taken to encourage more expansion.

The demand for space needs to exceed supply enough that it is profitable to construct new developments.

With this in mind I have found some very telling stats.

[Only The Lonely..]

I know Newflyer will be happy to hear this..

Down to wire with red-tape promises: Two changes left as deadline approaches

Tue Jan 15 2008 | By Bartley Kives | Winnipeg Free Press

As the red-tape clock counts down to midnight, Mayor Sam Katz has yet to implement a pair of bureaucracy-busting measures dreamt up by his commission to combat civic inefficiency.

One year ago this week, Katz used his annual State of the City address to promise all 30 recommendations made by the Red Tape Commission would be implemented within one calendar year. At the time, only 15 had been checked off the list.

Katz began counting down the days to full implementation on a red-tape clock on his website. He also deputized Russ Wyatt into the role of red tape commissioner, asking the Transcona councillor to finish a job begun by former St. Boniface Coun. Franco Magnifico.

Now, as the Jan. 16 deadline approaches, Katz says several items on the red-tape checklist have yet to be fully implemented, and two have not been implemented at all, despite considerable pressure on city staff from both the mayor and Wyatt.

"I deserve to be criticized if I say something will happen and it doesn't happen. But I'm very pleased with the progress we've made over the past year," Katz said Monday.

The two recommendations yet to be implemented involve the creation of standardized development agreements -- typically, plans to build new subdivisions -- and the creation of a strategy to cut even more red tape over the next five years.

"There are some of these initiatives that were very challenging, yet what I found out was if you pushed hard enough, we could have got them done 10 years ago," Katz said.

City departments initially skeptical of the Red Tape Commission's goals eventually bought into the program, added the mayor, singling out the licensing branch for eventually embracing and even leading change.

The Red Tape Commission's success stories include fewer building permits for new developments, the elimination of the entertainment tax and variety of zoning, licensing and bylaw reforms.

"Generally speaking, it's been a very successful year. We were able to speed up a process that had pretty much ground to a halt," Wyatt said. "But the true test (of success) in my mind is whether the citizens of Winnipeg see a change in service levels."

Both Katz and Wyatt pledged to ensure Winnipeg will continue to cut red tape and said they hoped to have more good news to announce before the mayor makes his 2008 State of the City speech Feb. 8.

In the meantime, Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce president Dave Angus, who took part in the red tape process, said he believed the commission has already made lives easier for people who have to deal with city hall.

"They are seeing a difference, in terms of timelines. We're pretty satisfied with what's been done," he said, noting he's not disappointed Katz failed to implement all 30 recommendations. "We knew 30 recommendations were aggressive, but they were aggressive by design.

"It was important for the mayor to challenge the city. It would have been easy to just let the report sit on the shelf, but he really created a sense of urgency and lit a fire beneath city staff."

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca


28 down, two to go


On Jan. 16, 2007, during his State of the City speech, Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz pledged to implement all 30 Red Tape Commission recommendations by Jan. 16, 2008.

With the deadline approaching, Katz claims only two of those recommendations remain unfulfilled, although several others have not been completely implemented.

Here are a handful of the commission's hits -- and its only two misses.


Selected Red Tape success stories:

* The elimination of the entertainment tax, which the arts sector despised.

* A reduction in the number of building permits for developers and permits for major festivals.

* Fewer delays for building-code inspections.

* A one-year reduction in the time it takes to approve local improvements, which are infrastructure projects financed by the city, but later paid for by residents.

* A simplified rezoning process, under the new Winnipeg Zoning Bylaw.

* A long-awaited plan to combine city call centres into a single 311 telephone service.

* The creation of a single bylaw enforcement unit later this year.*

* The elimination of licences for home-based businesses, which were not enforceable.*


* Pending council approval


Red Tape recommendations yet to be implemented:

* Standardized development agreements, free from political interference.

* The creation of a red-tape budget for the next five years.

[1ajs]

mts is celibrating 100 years this year

[newflyer]

Another great business story for Winnipeg...


MTS celebrates 100 years as telecom leader
Wed Jan 16 2008

By Martin Cash


JOE BRYKSA / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS

MTS CEO Pierre Blouin (left) cuts cake with Mayor Sam Katz and Win­nipeg chamber president Dave Angus.
MTS CEO Pierre Blouin sliced into a birthday cake in the shape of a BlackBerry on Tuesday, marking the 100th anniversary of the company before more than 200 head office employees at its Portage and Main headquarters.

With a growing television service and the prospect of a national wireless business on the horizon, Blouin said MTS is in an excellent position to take advantage of new opportunities.

"Being around for so long is a recognition that the company has been built on solid ground," Blouin said.

Not only does the company boast shares that produce the highest yield by far on the TSX and one of the strongest balance sheets in Canadian telecom, it has been a leader in the industry in rolling out digital television service.

It was only recently surpassed by AT&T as the North American telephone company with the largest television customer base.


"This company has a long, proud history of innovative services and a large number of industry firsts," Blouin told employees.


Those firsts include some surprising incidents:

* first round-the-world telephone call in 1935;

* first telex message in 1956;

* first citywide touch-tone service in Brandon in 1968;

* first Canadian company to offer full online services to personal digital assistants (PDAs) in 2001.

The company's impact is not restricted to technology. Salaries for the 3,000 Manitoba employees pump about $180 million annually into the provincial economy and overall, MTS contributes about $1 billion to the annual gross domestic product.

"MTS is the definition of a good corporate citizen," Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz said at the celebration. "I wish we had 10 more like it."

Dave Angus, president of the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce, spoke about how proud the community-at-large is of the company.

"There is a bond that has grown between the community and the company, and it has to do with integrity and excellence," Angus said.

Right now, the company is deciding whether to take the biggest step since acquiring the national Allstream business in 2001 -- bidding on wireless spectrum and forming a national wireless business.


martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca




MTS at 100


Employees -- 6,000 in total; about 3,000 in Manitoba including about 1,000 in the Portage and Main neighbourhood.

Economic impact -- About $1 billion annually to the province's GDP including millions of dollars worth of goods and services purchased in Manitoba.

Community giving -- $10 million over the last 10 years to charities like the United Way, the Heart and Stroke Foundation, the Canadian Cancer Society and the Salvation Army. In addition to the naming rights to the downtown sports and entertainment centre, MTS is also a major sponsor of Festival du Voyageur and the Brandon Winter Fair.

Volunteers -- Hundreds of retired MTS employees are members of the MTS Allstream Volunteers (formerly called the Telephone Pioneers of America), who donate thousands of hours of volunteer time to community events across the province.

[newflyer]

Buhler production to double
Tractor maker's big challenge: handling growth
Wed Jan 16 2008

By Larry Kusch


WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS

Buhler president Dmitry Lyubimov wants to boost overall revenues this year by 45 per cent to $240 million.
BUHLER Industries is hiring staff and ramping up tractor production as quickly as it can at its Fort Garry plant to feed an expected surge this year in domestic and foreign sales.

"We're going to be more than doubling our production here in the current year," said Alex Buchko, Buhler's finance chief, on Tuesday.

"Next year, we're looking at (a) 50 per cent (increase) over that, and then in the second year down the road another 50 per cent increase," he said.

Buhler -- purchased by a Russian-based farm equipment manufacturer last fall -- has hired more than 50 employees since Oct. 1 and plans to add another 50 or more by fall.

"The growth (in tractor production) will happen as quickly as we can manage it. That's the sense of optimism we have about the market now," Buchko said in an interview Tuesday as the company issued its 2007 financial results.

Plagued by years of depressed grain prices, Buhler made only 500 tractors last year (while selling 600) as its Winnipeg plant operated at less than 25 per cent capacity. This year, it plans to build 1,100 tractors as it ramps up production.

The company's new president, Dmitry Lyubimov, has set the ambitious goal of boosting overall company revenues this year by 45 per cent to $240 million, which would exceed the decade-high $232.6 million set in fiscal 2002.

In addition to building tractors, Buhler makes a line of small equipment that includes grain augers, snowblowers and mowers. It has operations in Morden and North Dakota as well as in Winnipeg.

"The main market for the tractor division will be the traditional North American regions and we will continue to promote growth in the post-Soviet Union (Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan), Lyubimov said in a statement accompanying the company's financial results. "Both markets will share 50 per cent of our sales."

Buhler reported higher profits for the year ended Sept. 30, despite lower sales, as the company shed some of its non-core assets, including a West St. Paul machining operation, a parking lot on McDermot Avenue, east of Main Street, and some Winnipeg land.

With these sales, net earnings rose to $8.0 million (32 cents a share) compared with $4.4 million (18 cents) in fiscal '06.

Revenues last year totalled $166.2 million compared with $175.1 million the year before.

The 100 new employees Buhler is adding this year will bring its workforce to more than 750. As recently as 2000, the company employed 1,000 workers, according to its annual report. Most of the new hires will work in the Winnipeg tractor plant.

Buchko said the upturn in world grain prices has been a blessing for Buhler.

"There's just more money in farmers' hands, and that has to help us," he said.

As well, parent company Combine Factory Rostselmash Ltd. gives the company a new overseas distribution network boasting more than 200 locations.

Buchko said the Fort Garry plant has the physical capacity to produce "well in excess of 2,000" tractors a year.

Combine Factory Rostselmash owns about 80 per cent of the company, whose shares trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

On Tuesday, Buhler Industries Inc. (TSX:BUI) shares closed at $6.25, up 14 cents or 2.29 per cent, on a volume of 1,183. Over the past year, Buhler stock has traded between $5 and $7.25 a share.

[vid]

TBayTel is older than MTS?

And it already has IPTV! Wow.

[1ajs]

Ditch the dead-end burg talk

Continued growth fuels optimism in Winnipeg

Thu Jan 17 2008
By Murray McNeill
BORIS MINKEVICH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS ARCHIVES
Civic and business leaders have been trying for years to convince outsiders that Winnipeg has a lot more going for it than most people realize.

WINNIPEG'S head marketing man has a message for those who still have this image of this city as a dead-end burg with little or no population or economic growth.
"Lose it," Destination Winnipeg CEO Stuart Duncan told about 275 people attending the WinnipegREALTORS Association's second annual forecast forum Wednesday. "Those days are over. That is not the Winnipeg of today." Civic and business leaders have been trying for years to convince outsiders that Winnipeg has a lot more going for it than most people realize, and Duncan said they now have the numbers to back it up.
Not only was Winnipeg one of the country's strongest economic performers last year, with projected real GDP growth of 3.7 per cent, but Manitoba also rang up what could be the strongest provincial population growth in 35 years.
The province's chief statistician, who was also a guest speaker at the forum, said when Statistics Canada's year-end figures are released in late March, they're expected to show Manitoba's population grew by between 13,000 and 14,000 people in 2007.
If it's closer to 14,000, it will be the highest population growth since at least 1972, Wilf Falk said. And if it's closer to 13,000, it will be the best since 1982, when 13,600 people moved here. Falk said the two things fuelling most of that growth are the province's success at attracting more international immigrants to the province and its success at stemming the outflow of people to other provinces.
He said just more than 11,000 new international immigrants moved to Manitoba last year, which boosted Manitoba's population to just under 1.2 million.
At the same time it was luring more people from other countries, the province was also experiencing a dramatic turnaround in its interprovincial migration numbers.
Falk said the year-end figures are expected to show Manitoba had a net loss of only 1,389 people to other provinces in 2007, which would be the lowest net loss since 1984 when it was minus 49. It's also a huge improvement from 2005 and 2006, when the net loss was 9,298 and 7,658 respectively.
He said past of the reason for that is that a growing number of ex-Manitobans are moving back here from Alberta because they're finding it's becoming too expensive to live there.
He said housing costs are eating up nearly 50 per cent of their income, and many of them have had enough.
"The bloom is off the Alberta rose."
Falk told the forum guests that Winnipeg's housing market will continue to benefit from this population surge because all of these new arrivals need a place to live.
He said 8,400 of last year's new international immigrants settled in Winnipeg, and the city's population, which was pegged at 652,400 in 2006, is expected to balloon to 724,700 by 2016 and to 843,100 by 2026. The WRA's residential market analyst told the forum he expects Manitoba's resale homes market to match or better last year's record-breaking performance, which included 13,079 properties sold through the WRA's Multiple Listing Service and a dollar-volume total of $2.23 billion.
Peter Squire predicted an increase of zero to two per cent in unit sales next year, a 12 to 14 per cent increase in the dollar-volume of sales, and a 10 to 12 per cent increase in the average selling price of a resale home.
If that latter prediction proves accurate, it would be the sixth consecutive year of double-digit price increases, he added.
murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca

[newflyer]

Massive shakeup for Huntingdon REIT board
High-powered members appointed
Fri Jan 18 2008

By Martin Cash


MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE ARCHIVES

Arni Thorsteinson (left) with Huntingdon’s Larry Beeston.
A New York hedge fund has strong-armed its way onto the board of Huntingdon Real Estate Investment Trust in hopes of bolstering the value of the Winnipeg REIT's units.

On Thursday, Zachary George, co-founder and portfolio manager of FrontFour Capital Group, which owns 6.6 per cent of HREIT's units (with two other funds), was appointed to the HREIT's board of trustees along with two other veteran real estate players.

The move came a month after FrontFour gave notice it was requesting a special shareholder meeting to turf Huntingdon's former board and appoint its own slate of trustees.

George said at the time he was "deeply concerned" about the falling unit price of HREIT and its practice of diluting ownership with equity offerings to buy buildings at capitalization rates lower than that implied in the units themselves.

"Huntingdon unit-holders will benefit from the election of independent trustee that are nominated by unit-holders and not selected by the owner of Shelter," George said.

HREIT owns about $600 million worth of commercial and industrial real estate primarily in Western Canada. Most of its properties are managed by Shelter Canadian Properties Ltd., a company owned privately by Arni Thorsteinson.

George said he believed part of HREIT's problems stemmed from its relationship with Shelter, whose fees grow as the portfolio gets larger, regardless of the performance of HREIT or its unit price.

HREIT owns 37 buildings in Manitoba including such Winnipeg landmarks as the downtown retail/office building Cityplace, the NewPort Centre office building on Portage Avenue, the Winnipeg Medical Arts Building and a handful of shopping centres including Charleswood Square, Westwood Mall and Northgate Shopping Centre.

On Wednesday, HREIT announced its intention to buy back up to five per cent of the outstanding units over the next 12 months, claiming there is a "disparity between the market price and what HREIT believes to be the underlying value of the units."

One industry source said hedge funds are looking for 20 to 25 per cent returns and putting pressure on the board of a company like HREIT is a typical tactic for such funds.

George, a Canadian who is barely 30 years old, started FrontFour Capital with partners last year. It is a relatively small fund at about $75 million and has holdings in other Canadian REITs.

Both George and Thorsteinson said a negotiated agreement took place and three former trustees resigned to make way for the FrontFour selection.

The new arrivals onto Thorsteinson's board take the place of three local trustees -- Gary Coleman, CEO of the Steinbach trucking firm Big Freight Systems Inc.; Edward Bailey, a former vice-president of Landmark Group, a Manitoba swine and feed operation; and Colin Reid, a former real estate vice-president at Barclays Bank of Canada.

Thorsteinson said he is not concerned by the bluster preceding the arrival of the new, high-powered board members.

"That's just New York hedge fund rhetoric," Thorsteinson said. "These guys acquired five million units and have acquired more and we had agreed that when they did they would get some representation on the board."

With Thursday's announcement, George and Thorsteinson said they look forward to working together.

In addition to George, new HREIT board members are Michael Evans, president of Atlas Development Corp., a private Calgary real estate company; and Gary Goodman, former CEO of a U.S. REIT that just sold for $1.4 billion and who is also a former senior executive with Reichmann International and Olympia & York.


martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca


Huntingdon Real Estate Investment Trust


13.9 per cent -- total return in 2007 -- eighth best out of 25 Canadian REITs

12 per cent -- total yield on units in 2007 -- fourth best out of 25 Canadian REITs

$600 million -- value of holdings

$150 million -- market capitalization

$57.4 million -- revenue for the 12 months ending Dec. 31, 2007