Artis Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) has sold four Regina strip retail centres in a $41,365,000 megadeal brokered by Avison Young.
While offered in a process that preferred a single bid on the entire portfolio, the four shopping centres sold during April, August and September to three separate purchasers, Avison Young confirmed, at near the full asking price of $41.4 million.
The portfolio included 141,841 square feet of retail space on a total of 11.1 acres in four different sites.
The properties are West Landing Mall, with 39,022 square feet of gross leasable space on 3.16 acres, listed at $14.7 million; East Landing Mall, covering 40,291 square feet (GLS) on 3.48 acres, listed at $12.6 million; East Landing Plaza, with 24,162 square feet GLS on 1.68 acres, listed at $6.5 million ;and Fleet Street Crossing, a 2.86-acre retail centre with 37,736 square feet GLS, listed a $7.6 million.
All of the properties are located in the midst of the busy east Regina retail corridor along Victoria Avenue East and Quance Street East.
Four of the centres were between 89 per cent and 100 per cent leased, while Fleet Street Crossing was 76 per cent leased at the time of offering, according to the portfolio offering material obtained by Western Investor.
The portfolio sale was brokered by Dale Griesser, president and managing director of Avison Young, Regina, and Avison Young principal Douglas McMurray.
Retail real estate has been a surprisingly strong sector in Regina, despite the pandemic. Retail spending in Saskatchewan in July 2021 reached $1.74 billion, up 4.6 per cent from July of 2020, Statistics Canada reported.
Regina’s retail vacancy rate in the second quarter of 2021 was 6.7 per cent, according to industry reports, virtually unchanged from a year earlier. For all of Regina, the average retail space lease rate is $17.70 per square foot.
The Regina retail centre transactions may mark the second large property transaction in Western Canada by Artis REIT. On September 20, Artis reported it had listed the last six office buildings it owns in Calgary for sale.
At the end of Q2 2021, Winnipeg-based Artis REIT had 133 Canadian properties with about 10.4 million square feet and 70 U.S. properties with about 11.6 million square feet for an overall total of 203 properties and 22 million square feet. The REIT’s portfolio at the end of the second quarter was 42.7 per cent office, 38.2 per cent industrial and 19.1 per cent retail.
