Now that the Y2K scare is behind us (who will trust their computer consultants opinion from now on?) we can move on to the more mundane tasks of making money. Both of my home computers are working, including the first 386 I purchased from Steals (remember them) many years ago. We even have two older computers at the office that are used for printing and some older DOS programs we still run that are still working fine. I was interested in the coverage of the e-tailing business over the holidays. One thing that struck me is that the long term winners will be those companies that have both a bricks and mortar presence as well as an internet presence. It is still much easier to return a gift to a bricks and mortar store and get a replacement that day than to send your gift back my courier and wait for what you hope was what you wanted in the first place.

SALES

Making up for a very slow October, there were a number of larger sales in November.

A Class "C" OFFICE building at 400 Cumberland Street was sold by Wenzhold Properties Limited to 1258898 Ontario Ltd. for a consideration of $4,500,000 or $26/sq.ft. It should be noted that when the purchase price was agreed to, the federal government had indicated that they would not be renewing the lease and the building would be vacant. However, the federal government has recently agreed to lease the whole building.

A five-storey office building at 1306 Wellington Street and a vacant parking lot at 1286 Wellington Street were sold by Business Development Bank of Canada to 1364205 Ontario Ltd. for a consideration of $500,000 or $28/sq.ft. of building area.

A two-storey, 8,772 square foot office building at 1825 Woodward Drive was sold for a consideration of $525,000 or $60/sq.ft. The vendor was 2959691 Canada Inc. and the purchaser was 290845 Ontario Limited. This property was purchased in 1994 for $450,000.

The Cisco building at 365 March Road in Kanata was purchased from 151516 Canada Inc. (Riocan) by 3674991 Canada Inc. (Canderel) for a consideration of $7,750,000 or $110/sq.ft. This is a one-storey industrial/office building that is leased to Cisco until July 2006. Nathan Smith of Royal Lepage was the agent of record on this sale.

Riocan also sold the building to the immediate south of the Cisco building to Cue Real Property (2) Ltd. This building is located at 28-36 Steacie Drive and was purchased for $1,875,000 or $83/sq.ft. It is a one-storey office/industrial building. The building was 100% leased to three tenants. Nathan Smith was the agent on this sale as well.

A two-storey retail/office building at 1657-1673 Carling Avenue was sold by 1329147 Ontario Inc. to 1657-1673 Carling Inc. for a consideration of $500,000 or $22/sq.ft.

There is so much interest in the Kanata market that a bowling centre has been purchased for conversion into office/industrial space. The building, located at 80 Hines Road, was sold by Kanata Klassic Bowl Inc. to RT Nineteenth Pension Properties Limited (an adjoining property owner) for $1,925,000 or approximately $60/sq.ft.

The INDUSTRIAL market was also active with a portfolio of seven industrial buildings in the east end being sold by 1329147 Ontario Inc. to Pensionfund Realty Limited. The seven buildings are located at 2660-2678 Lancaster Road, 2700 Lancaster Road, 2710 Lancaster Road, 2750-2772 Lancaster Road, 1580-1590 Liverpool Court, 1117-1141 Newmarket Street and 1315-1317 Michael Street. The total consideration was $7,491,400 or $29/sq.ft. There was a reported vacancy of 26% at the time of sale. Mario Staltari of jj Barnicke was the agent on this sale.

A 226,000 square foot industrial complex at 1250-1280 Leeds Avenue was sold by ACP Holdings Limited to Admns Leeds Investment Corporation for a consideration of $10,000,000 or $44/sq.ft.

Royal Trust Corporation of Canada sold a 84,700 square foot industrial/office building at 302 Legget Drive in Kanata to Legget Drive Property Limited (Strand Securities) for a consideration of $3,800,000 or $45/sq.ft. Approximately 60% of the building is finished as office space and the balance as warehouse.

There were no major RETAIL or APARTMENT TRANSACTIONS for November 1999.

NORTEL purchased 17.346 acres of INDUSTRIAL LAND at the northwest corner of Palladium Drive and First Line Road from CIBC Development Corporation for $3,902,850 or $225,000 per acre. The site had been purchased by CIBCin June of 1998 at a cost of $150,000 per acre.

NEWS

JDS Uniphase continues to grow. They will be purchasing an additional 53 acres from the City of Nepean in the South Merivale Business Park, adjacent to the 53 acres they already own. In addition, they have recently leased the former MetLife buildings at Walkley and Conroy Roads in the Ottawa Business Park. This will increase their occupancy to in excess of 300,000 square feet in the Ottawa Business Park.

According to the Ottawa-Carleton Real Estate Board, Ottawa-Carleton home sales hit a new record in 1999 with approximately 11,220 home sales. This is an increase of 18% over the record set in 1998. The board is expecting sales of between 9,500 and 10,000 for the upcoming year.

Honeywell Aerospace has announced they will be closing their operation on Hamilton Avenue in the Parkdale market area. This will result in the layoff of 103 local employees. We expect this property will be on the market sometime this year.

Taggart Corporation received a favourable decision from the OMB for the development of a 107,000 square foot retail plaza at the northeast corner of Terry Fox Drive and Campeau Drive in the City of Kanata. Construction is expected early this year.

A new 130,000 square foot RONA hardware store is proposed to be developed at the corner of Blair and Innes Roads in the east end of the region. The developer is Canril who is proposing to construct an additional120,000 square feet of retail on the 22 acre site. However, development of the site will be delayed until the courts decide if the National Capital Commission can sell the site to Canril or if they have to sell it back to the farmer they expropriated it from in 1963, the Woodburn family. Stay tuned on this one.

The Ottawa Citizen in a recent article predicted that the number of workers in the local high-tech industry will outnumber the number of workers in the federal government sometime in 2002. The article noted that the federal government currently employs 72,000 and the high-tech industry 60,000. However, with the continued growth of JDS Uniphase, NORTEL and other local IT firms, it will be only two more years before you have a 50/50 chance of guessing if the person from Ottawa you meet at the cocktail party works in the federal government or the high-tech industry. (hint: find out the kind of car he/she owns. If it is a BMW, a Jag, a Lexus, a Porsche etc he/she works in the high-tech industry).

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