Ottawa is fast becoming the city of choice for the high-tech community. It seems that every week there is an announcement that yet another Ottawa firm has received funding from a venture capital fund. I think these firms may have a harder time finding employees and office space. Two more international firms (Nokia and Fore Systems) have made announcements that they will be expanding in the Ottawa area this year.

Kanata Research Park is to construct a 150,000 square foot office building for Nokia in their business park that is located east of March Road in Kanata North. Fore Systems has announced that they have chosen Canderel to construct a new 120,000 square foot research facility in Canderel's North Tech campus that is located to the west of March Road. The NorthTech campus, which Canderel only started developing this year, now has three buildings under construction including the 145,000 square foot building for Entrust and the 105,000 square foot building for Cisco Systems. The Cisco building is rumored to be the first of four or five buildings. So much for Jon Wener and company disappearing after selling out to Oxford last year.

A report was released at the end of May predicting that Ottawa's population will double in the next 20 years. If the high-tech industries continue to expand at the current rate, this prediction will be easily met.

One correction to last month's newsletter is that the Royal Bank sold a small one-storey office building behind their branch on Riverside Drive not the branch which is still open. The office building was purchased by an owner occupant at a cost of $40/sq.ft.

Now onto a summary of the sales that closed in April.

SALES

A 10,200 sq.ft. heritage OFFICE building at 1811 St. Joseph Blvd. was sold by Brookfield Homes Ltd. to 1395077 Ontario Ltd. for $500,000 or $49/sq.ft.

Newbridge Networks not only sold their company to Alcatel but also sold an 18,000 sq.ft. INDUSTRIAL building at 20 Edgewater Street in Kanata to 888394 Ontario Inc. for $1,030,000 or $57/sq.ft. The property was listed with John Seymour and Brad Denison of Colliers.

An 11,200 square foot industrial building at 1419 & 1427 Michael Street was sold by Alfred & Agnes Bross to Malmberg Truck Trailer Equipment Ltd. for $410,000 or $37/sq.ft. This was purchased for owner occupancy.

The APARTMENT market was quiet again this month with only one sale of a 24 unit apartment building at 318 Cooper Street. The property was sold by Caroline Yeung to 1374937 Ontario Inc. The purchase price was $549,000 or $22,875/unit.

An older two-storey COMMERCIAL building at 365-369 Bank Street was sold under power of sale by the Bank of Montreal to Tony, Brent and Stirling McElheran for $350,000 or $65/sq.ft.

A two-storey MIXED USE building at 434 1/2 Preston Street was sold by 622246 Ontario Limited to 1395195 Ontario Inc. for $555,000 or $135/sq.ft.

There were no RETAIL PLAZA sales in April.

The market for VACANT LAND continues to be active with the following sales.

Coventry Road has become very popular with three properties closing in April.

Kaysush Developments Ltd., in trust, sold a 8.564 acre site to the immediate west of the St. Laurent Shopping Center to the owners of the shopping center for $2,600,000. The property was still improved with the former Coca Cola building which was some 117,000 square feet in size. Rumor has it that the purchaser is to demolish the building for the construction of a new Sears home furnishing store. Kaysush purchased the property in 1995 from Coca Cola for $1,640,000.

Canadian Tire purchased two sites on Coventry Road to the immediate east of the Ottawa Lynx ball park. The property located at 330 Coventry Road is 6 acres in size and was purchased from Canada Life for $2,699,550 or $450,000 per acre. The second parcel is located at 356-360 Coventry Road and is 5.67 acres in size. It was purchased from Standard Life for $2,610,000 or $460,000 per acre. Canadian Tire has already started construction of a new store.

Shell Canada purchased a 56,251 sq.ft. site on the southeast corner of March Road & Shirley's Brook Drive in Kanata North from 947099 Ontario Limited (Cuckoo Kochar) for $800,000 or $14.22/sq.ft.

Richcraft Homes continues to purchase land. Their latest purchase is of a 19.37 acre site to the north of Page Road in Gloucester for $1,247,000 or $64,371/acre. The vendor was Page Road Inc.

Timberwood Development Corporation sold a 133.17 acre site at the northwest corner of Hazeldean and Carp Roads in Stittsville to CBA Rideau (Stittsville) ltd. for $4,200,000 or $31,540/acre. This is to be developed with a residential subdivision.

Peter Dent continues to assemble land along Terminal Avenue. His most recent purchase was a 9.44 acre site from Canada Lands Company CLC Limited for $950,000 or $100,593/acre.

You know the market is getting hot when land is being purchased for speculative reasons. The estate of John Foster Bradley sold a 70 acre site on the north side of Hazeldean Road to WEC 2000 Ottawa Land A Company for $1,067,200 or $15,245/acre. This site is outside of the urban boundaries of Kanata but is within the area that is now being studied to be included into the urban area.

NEWS

The Ottawa economy continues to outperform the national economy with a local unemployment rate in April at 5.1% down from 5.4% in April. This is the best rate in the past decade.

According to the Ottawa-Carleton Real Estate Board, there were 1,511 properties sold in May bringing the total for the first five months to 5,493 as compared to 4,819 for the first five months of 1999. The average price was $159,113 which was 6.7% higher than last year.

In last month's newsletter I mentioned that the City of Nepean had rezoned 400 acres along Highway 416 and Strandherd Drive in Barrhaven for business park use. There is reported to be an offer from a high-tech firm for 100 acres of this site. However, the City of Nepean is in the process of having an Environmental Assessment Report completed for the servicing of these lands which could delay the timing for development.

O & Y Properties completed the sale of their six property portfolio to Sakto Corporation for $31,150,000. More details on this sale will be included in the next newsletter.

Truscan Realty has finally announced that they will be constructing a second 250,000 square foot tower at the World Exchange Plaza. They have already leased 130,000 square feet of the new tower. Given current market conditions and the lack of any large blocks of Class "A" space in the core, I won't be surprised if they will be making further announcements regarding new tenants in the not too distant future.