Carlingwood Shopping Centre has been sold to a pair of real estate firms that plan to launch a wave of new residential development at the 30-acre site that is now home to the city’s fifth-largest mall.
Vancouver-based Anthem Properties Group and Toronto’s Streamliner Properties Inc. have partnered to acquire the 632,700-square-foot retail complex on Carling Avenue, which is anchored by the country’s largest Canadian Tire store. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Opened in 1956, Carlingwood now has more than 90 stores and services, including marquee tenants such as Loblaws, Rexall and Dollarama. The mall, which is also home to a fitness centre and three banks, attracts more than 280,000 visitors a month.
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In a statement issued Friday, Carlingwood’s new owners said the mall’s proximity to a major arterial road and the soon-to-be-completed New Orchard LRT station makes it a “prime location for much-needed incremental residential density,” adding “quality housing is in high demand” in the neighbourhood around the mall.
The developers said they plan to take a “phased approach” to building out the property, which many local real estate observers believe is an ideal location for highrise condominiums on the parking lots surrounding the shopping centre.
It’s the first foray into the National Capital Region for Anthem and Streamliner, a wholly owned subsidiary of Minett Capital.
At the same time, it’s a return to familiar territory for Streamliner chief executive Alan Greenberg, who noted in Friday’s news release that he grew up “around the corner” from the shopping centre.
“To say I am excited to provide my years of leadership in both real estate and green technology to a development of this scope and substance, is an understatement,” Greenberg said. “Our aim is to create prime urban communities where people live, work and play.”
Anthem founder and CEO Eric Carlson said the acquisition is part of the company’s push to expand its holdings beyond Western Canada.
“We anticipate that the reset in real estate ownership brought on by changes in capital allocations, in turn brought on by inflation and higher interest rates, will facilitate this strategic shift,” Carlson explained.
“Carlingwood, as a landmark shopping destination for the Ottawa region, is a tremendous opportunity to kick off this strategy.”
Anthem and Streamliner did not immediately respond to requests for further comment on Monday.
Retail growth continues
The Carlingwood purchase is the largest transaction in Ottawa’s retail sector since KingSett Capital acquired Ivanhoe Cambridge’s 50 per cent stake in Bayshore Shopping Centre for $193.5 million in 2021.
The deal suggests the National Capital Region continues to be a bright spot for investors as space remains at a premium and overall sales keep rising.
A report earlier this year from brokerage firm Marcus & Millichap said Ottawa’s retail vacancy rate hit an all-time low in 2023. The firm predicted the rate will fall another tenth of a percentage point to about 1.5 per cent this year, “making Ottawa one of the tightest retail markets in 2024.”
While some industry observers are forecasting a slowdown in retail sales growth this year, Anthem and Streamliner said the Ottawa market “continues to be strong” with “material positive absorption and low vacancy rates.”
However, some experts argue Carlingwood’s true long-term value lies more in residential development than in its retail component.
“This is a real-estate play,” Carleton University professor Ian Lee, who teaches marketing at the Sprott School of Business, told OBJ last summer. “The buyer will not be buying this because they want to become a shopping mall operator so much as to get that land.”
Considered a “suburban” mall when it first opened, Carlingwood has become comparatively closer to the city centre as Ottawa has grown, Lee noted, making it a desirable spot for residential development that’s not quite downtown but still easily accessible to the core.
“As the centre of gravity shifts westward, that land becomes more valuable,” he explained.
“How many large-area, flat-surface parking lots are … sitting around in prime parts of Ottawa? That land is too valuable now to just sit there as a parking lot. They will develop that land, and I’m sure that they will be developing it into condo towers, because then you can really maximize your return on that land.”
Toronto-based retail analyst Bruce Winder agreed, telling OBJ in an interview last July the mall’s new owners will likely look to get the most out of their purchase by redeveloping land that’s currently being underutilized as parking.
“That’s probably the biggest trend right now with malls that are sort of in that category,” Winder said. “(Carlingwood) has obviously got some good anchors. I think maybe the opportunity is to build around those anchors. You create this city within a city.”
