Outsourcing is back in fashion in commercial real estate. After Ivanhoé Cambridge, which entrusted the management of its emails to the American JLL, it is the turn of the Toronto-based RioCan to make the same gesture.
Posted at 5:23 p.m.
The Harden Group, of Vaudreuil-Dorion, becomes the manager of 19 RioCan shopping centers in Quebec, including the Galeries Lachine and the Mega-Centre Notre-Dame, for which Harden holds 50% of the ownership rights.
The transaction between RioCan and Harden concerning the 50% interests in the Méga-Centre, located north of Notre-Dame Boulevard, along Highway 13 in Laval, should be finalized in the coming days.
A publicly traded real estate investment trust, RioCan is one of Canada’s leaders in big-box centres, a category of commercial properties that has aged badly and which faces direct competition from online commerce. A few years ago, it undertook a necessary shift aimed at converting commercial properties into multi-use complexes, including a residential component.
The challenges associated with the revitalization of shopping centers are colossal and the addition of expertise specifically dedicated to the task is an asset. The agreement was concluded by mutual agreement, specified the co-president and chief executive officer Tyler Harden to La Presse.
“We bring local expertise. We are a family business established in Vaudreuil-Dorion. At the core, we are a family of retailers [des bijoutiers] and we became a real estate company afterwards. We know the reality of retailers very well, ”explained in an interview Mr. Harden, 35 years old.
Founded in 1985, Harden is a vertically integrated real estate company, including development, construction, leasing, and property management. It currently owns and operates over 465,000 square meters (5 million square feet) of retail space. Harden has several projects under development, including more than 185,000 m2 (2 million ft2) of industrial area, 46,500 m2 (500,000 ft2) of commercial area and over 2,000 residential units.