Bonnie Doon Mall Redevelopment | ?m | ?s

[Offworld]

The group that manages Bonnie Doon obo the owners is in quite a death spiral. It's bleeding external clients and barely has the remaining expertise to do anything close to the redevelopment render.

 

[wormwood]

The group that manages Bonnie Doon obo the owners is in quite a death spiral. It's bleeding external clients and barely has the remaining expertise to do anything close to the redevelopment render.

The manager isn't the same as the owner. The mall is owned by institutional investors.

 

[wormwood]

How are we doing?

As of January it is still on hold.

 

[Markyeg]

Oof yeah
6 years and NO Progress: Zero
Even Millwoods has not been started: although that could change in ~2026

Current Guesses are where all the Big Projects are:

TOD
Jasper Gates: Nope, not happening Ever (Not even with a 1970s level boom)
Millwoods: Probably Soon (1st Phase goes ahead in ~6-8 months)
West Ed: Nahh (Developers just don't wanna)
Strathern: Uhh Maybe (DP's Keep getting Submitted... still)
Bonnie Doon: Some Signs of Life Maybe (District energy thing may finally spur something)
Century Park: Can we Hurry up (Slow project)
Holyrood/East Junction: Eww Ugly pit (Regency Sucks, Slow Project)
Stadium Yards: Please keep it going (2nd Phase Complete Waiting for 3rd phase)

Not quite WEM but the lot on the SE corner of 170th/87 ave will be pretty high on Maclab’s list after the fire two towers in Millwoods

 

[Edmcowboy11]

Bonnie Doon could be an amazing hub.

 

[IanO]

Could/should being the operative word. At the moment it appears to be more about a revaluation/refinancing effort.

 

[Offworld]

The manager isn't the same as the owner. The mall is owned by institutional investors.

No sh1t, Sherlock. I'm in the business. Until the investors put Morguard in the bin, Bonnie Doon is dead in the water. Morguard is losing a ton of third party clients, fired actually.

 

[wormwood]

 

[inclusion]

No sh1t, Sherlock. I'm in the business. Until the investors put Morguard in the bin, Bonnie Doon is dead in the water. Morguard is losing a ton of third party clients, fired actually.

Truth, plus they never really recovered after the 2019 downturn and the pandemic made matters worse. They are heavily exposed in malls, etc which haven’t recovered nor have offices. They had a lot of debentures that needed to be renewed several years ago. Are they having liquidity issues now? Seemed like that was a risk a few years ago for them. Rising interest rates must have hit them hard.

Unless they gain partners, I feel like this isn’t going to get off the ground any time soon. It seems like they have other core business issues to deal with.

 

[Barnaby]

Alot of these neighbourhood malls should really pivot to subdividing, selling to developers with a 1 year development caveat. You shore up your customer base for your anchor tenants, which are usually grocers, liquor stores, dollar stores.

Bonnie Doone would be great for this given the location of it's LRT stop and bus routes.

 

[johnnyboy]

^ I wonder how long that Makami lease is?

 

[wormwood]

Truth, plus they never really recovered after the 2019 downturn and the pandemic made matters worse. They are heavily exposed in malls, etc which haven’t recovered nor have offices. They had a lot of debentures that needed to be renewed several years ago. Are they having liquidity issues now? Seemed like that was a risk a few years ago for them. Rising interest rates must have hit them hard.

Unless they gain partners, I feel like this isn’t going to get off the ground any time soon. It seems like they have other core business issues to deal with.

Again, Morguard doesn't matter - they're just the manager. The owners are big pension plans which are stable. It was put on hold because of the interest rates being higher from COVID. Expect movement in the next year with the lower rates.

 

[inclusion]

Again, Morguard doesn't matter - they're just the manager. The owners are big pension plans which are stable. It was put on hold because of the interest rates being higher from COVID. Expect movement in the next year with the lower rates.

Do you know who the actual owner is? Everything online is pretty vague, a couple articles note institutional investment without stating the actual owner(s). You would think it would show up in annual reports/investor calls for upcoming projects for one of the big pension plans, but there is nothing.

 

[bodsbods9090]

Again, Morguard doesn't matter - they're just the manager. The owners are big pension plans which are stable. It was put on hold because of the interest rates being higher from COVID. Expect movement in the next year with the lower rates.

Movement at Bonnie Doon or just in general?

 

[wormwood]

Do you know who the actual owner is? Everything online is pretty vague, a couple articles note institutional investment without stating the actual owner(s). You would think it would show up in annual reports/investor calls for upcoming projects for one of the big pension plans, but there is nothing.

Greystone, CBC Pension Fund and the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan