Crown Realty Partners is selling a 100 per cent freehold interest in its two-building office complex at 3755 Riverside Dr., according to a marketing flyer from CBRE, which is brokering the sale on behalf of the owners.
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Months after reaching an agreement to sell one of its largest Ottawa office assets, a leading Toronto institutional real estate investor has put another marquee local property on the market.
Crown Realty Partners is selling a 100 per cent freehold interest in its two-building office complex at 3755 Riverside Dr., according to a marketing flyer from CBRE, which is brokering the sale on behalf of the owners.
The two-tower property, which was constructed in two phases between 1985 and 2000, is one of several major office properties in Crown’s local portfolio.
The 283,926-square-foot complex just north of Hunt Club Road is anchored by global technology giant IBM, which occupies all of the larger 10-storey, 195,000-square-foot tower and has six years remaining on its lease.
The six-storey, 85,000-square-foot building next door is 84 per cent leased to a mix of tenants that include construction giant PCL, which signed a long-term deal to rent 40,000 square feet of space in the building two years ago.
The leasing brochure says the property “offers a unique opportunity to acquire a long-term secure income stream and upside for near-term rental growth.”
Crown Realty acquired the complex, which sits on a six-acre parcel of land just minutes from the Ottawa International Airport, from IBM in December 2021 for $49 million as part of the tech company’s shift away from owning and managing its own real estate assets.
It was among a spate of office properties Crown purchased in the National Capital Region after first entering the market in 2019 with its $56.5-million acquisition of the three-building Carling Executive Centre.
Just weeks before acquiring the Riverside Drive property, Crown bought a 50 per cent stake in the Place de Ville office complex on Queen Street for $175 million in November 2021. Three months later in February 2022, Crown purchased the four-building Park of Commerce near Blair Road and the Queensway.
The Toronto firm also bought a number of industrial properties in Ottawa, eventually growing its portfolio in the region to more than 2.5 million square feet.
The company is now starting to divest some of its assets in the National Capital Region. In March, real estate brokerage Avison Young confirmed that Crown had conditionally sold the Carling Executive Centre to a local investor after shopping the property for nearly six months.
Graeme Webster, principal at Avison Young’s capital markets group in Ottawa, told OBJ in March that institutional investors like Crown were reassessing their office portfolios, creating an opportunity for local buyers looking to boost their holdings – particularly in suburban areas where demand for office space has bounced back since the pandemic.
Webster said institutions such as big pension funds and real estate investment trusts – traditionally two of the major drivers of investment activity – are rethinking their involvement in a sector that’s still in flux as tenants sort out working arrangements in a post-pandemic world.
“Typically in a market shift, we see (institutional investors) to be the last ones entering and the first ones exiting when things change,” he explained.
“So with a lot of institutions still on the sidelines, it’s provided space for private, local groups to become active again. I think we’re seeing that trend across the board with virtually every asset class we’re selling right now. It’s been predominantly private buyers that have been active.”
