Colliers Talks

The conversation focuses on the crucial role of ESG in driving business resilience and long-term success, while also highlighting the challenges of balancing competing interests in sustainable investing, including those of lenders, insurers, investors and tenants. This episode’s guests also discuss using a data-driven decision-making process to make the right calls when it comes to making Canada's built environment more sustainable.

The highlights include:

• At Colliers, more than 35 million square feet of our managed portfolio are currently certified to one or more ESG building performance and/or occupant experience standards. This is a 30% increase compared to last year.
• There is risk in abandoning ESG commitments, particularly as legislative and corporate requirements expand. While important decisions need to be made around how to move forward and which specific ESG elements to prioritize and when, it's essential to not turn our backs on the progress achieved so far.
• The insurance industry needs to accelerate its adaptation to the reality of ESG commitments today. In some cases, companies are spending millions on ESG resiliency measures, only to find that it is having no helpful impact on reducing their insurance premiums.
• People want more green spaces, as teams like Colliers Real Estate Management Services are routinely hearing from clients, tenants and the public. That's why the next big thing for real estate will be nature and biodiversity projects threaded into our buildings and cities.
• We must recognize that KPIs for the “E,” “S” and “G” components of ESG will differ. The ESG investments being made today have value beyond the financial win, and it's important to shine a light on that.

Get more insights from key Colliers experts and major industry players. Tune in to more Colliers Talks episodes.

Jacobs and Ivankovic cover the following topics:

• Over the last few years, Canada has seen more immigration to secondary or tertiary markets, and particularly in Alberta, which has been trying to attract more residents.
• Immigration is not only changing the number of Canadian consumers, but is also shifting how people consume products and the types of services required around the country.
• A surging population could also prove to be a boon for the office market, given that many industries will need larger teams of white-collar workers to remain functional and productive.
• Overall demand for various types of housing is going to increase, but we have yet to see meaningful solutions to expand and diversify the national housing inventory to keep pace with growth. It's becoming increasingly clear that governments alone will not be able to solve this problem.
• We're in the middle of a debate about productivity and the office. While many workers remain productive in a hybrid work environment, what are the consequences for innovation?
• Footwear, cosmetics, dollar stores and urban malls are thriving in the retail landscape. How are other retail types performing?
• Some forms of tourism, including cruises, are bouncing back, but we have yet to see tourism from China return to pre-pandemic levels — and that could impact the luxury shopping sector.

Last November, KingSett Capital announced the company had elevated Rob Kumer to the position of CEO while naming former CEO and founder (and previous Colliers Talks guest) Jon Love as Executive Chair of the firm.

Started by Love in 2002, KingSett Capital is a leading Canadian private equity real estate firm that co-invests with institutional and ultra-high net worth clients to deliver sustainable, premium, risk-weighted returns. KingSett manages over $18 billion in assets across its Growth, Income, Urban, Mortgage, Residential Development and Affordable Housing strategies.

Roughly three months into his new role, Kumer joined Marc Dube and Arnold Fox from Colliers Montreal to discuss the path that led him to the top of KingSett, and to detail how the Toronto-based company shaped itself into a one-stop shop for the real estate needs of investors, sellers, lenders, capital partners and occupiers with a national portfolio.

While enjoying a 2019 Burgundy, the hosts and their guest assessed the state of the Canadian commercial real estate industry while exploring both the challenges and causes for optimism with regards to the national economy.  

Downtown vibrancy and success partly stem from the amount of commercial and employment activity in the area, and especially the conditions of the office market.

Office vacancy and return-to-office have been hot topics this year. In this episode of Colliers Talks, host Susan Thompson, Associate Director of Research at Colliers in Vancouver (and a former resident of Calgary), explores both Calgary’s and Vancouver’s unique, and similar, challenges and opportunities in the pursuit of vibrancy and long-term downtown success.

Thompson is joined by Thom Mahler, director of downtown strategy at the City of Calgary and Eric Aderneck, regional planner with Metro Vancouver.

Over the past two decades, Aderneck has worked in the public and private sectors focused on planning policy, real estate development and consulting. Aderneck also teaches urban planning courses for both planners and other city building professionals at various institutions.

Mahler is the director leading the City of Calgary’s Downtown Strategy team, helping to steward the City’s $400 million investment to build a thriving, future-focused downtown. Throughout his career in Calgary, Mahler held various managerial roles in the City’s planning department where he was responsible for long-term planning, development review and land-use applications.

Brian Rosen, CEO of Colliers Canada, takes a journey through the past while plotting future success with Chris McLernon, Global CEO for Real Estate Services at Colliers. 

Colliers is celebrating our 125th year of doing business in Canada. That's 125 years of leveraging our expertise and enterprising culture to accelerate the success of our people, clients and communities.  

To commemorate this achievement, Colliers leaders Brian Rosen and Chris McLernon came together in Toronto for a special episode of Colliers Talks to honour our roots, highlight our achievements, and look to the future – a true Canadian success story that, despite our strong legacy, is really just getting started.  

Adam Jacobs, Head of Research at Colliers Canada, pores over the national economic situation with Claire Fan, RBC Economist, Office of the CEO.

Marc Kirshenbaum, Executive Vice President, Colliers connects with Mark Ang, CEO & Co-Founder of GoBolt

Mark Ang, the CEO & Co-Founder of GoBolt, has emerged as a change-maker in ecommerce logistics in Canada. Ang joined Marc Kirshenbaum, Executive Vice President with Colliers’ Brokerage operations in Toronto, for an episode of Colliers Talks to explore GoBolt's origins and growth as it leverages smart tech and electric delivery strategies.

Ang, who co-founded the company while a student at the University of Toronto, dishes on the journey GoBolt has taken to integrate technology and sustainability into ecommerce delivery and logistics, while also discussing with Kirshenbaum how demand from tech-forward logistics companies like GoBolt is causing shifts in the national warehousing/industrial market.

As a tech-enabled logistics provider catering to local ecommerce shops as well as national and international brands, GoBolt places a strong emphasis on reducing the carbon footprint of last mile delivery while boosting the amount of delivery data available for both clients and customers.

Mark and Marc cover the following topics:

• GoBolt's journey: Explore the company's evolution from a B2C consumer storage model to a B2B logistics powerhouse, attracting key clients such as IKEA, Rove Concepts and Frank & Oak.

• Development: Learn how GoBolt managed its remarkable growth, particularly in terms of expanding its warehousing space.

• Consumer and client experience: Gain insights into the data GoBolt provides customers and clients, leveraging technology to boost efficiency.

• Sustainability and ESG: Discover how GoBolt embarked on sustainable practices and adopted technology, aligning with its commitment to environmental responsibility.

• Industrial logistics space: Learn how companies like GoBolt are rethinking their industrial warehousing needs, and how their operations will dictate the types of warehouses they'll want to see in the market.

• Changing landlord perspectives: Hear why Ang thinks landlords need to start thinking of their tenants as customers instead of as paycheques.

The Canadian commercial property market is facing political, social and economic challenges. For Jon Love, the founder and CEO of KingSett Capital, there is no use sitting around complaining about the problems without also thinking about the solutions and generating action.

Scott Addison, Partner, Colliers Strategy & Consulting Group, speaks with Jon Love for this episode of Colliers Talks. In it, they cover challenges in the arenas of urban placemaking, return to office, project gridlock, and political inertia — as well as some of the fixes.

Apart from being the founder and CEO of KingSett Capital, a Canadian private equity real estate investment business that creates and co-invests in real estate investment solutions to deliver sustainable premium risk weighted returns, Jon also serves on its Board of Directors and is a member of the Business Council of Canada and YPO. Jon was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada in 2018.

A few topics Jon and Scott delve into:

• Leadership in good times is challenging enough, but times of adversity require a different approach to communication and utmost transparency and authenticity. Leaders need to lean in, and drive solutions instead of focusing only on the problems.

• Canada has some helpful tailwinds, including record population growth due to strong immigration. These newcomers will need more of everything: places to live, work, shop and recreate. That creates a constructive backdrop for the national CRE picture.

• Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal are facing restrictive land use guidelines, which limit the development of new homes and commercial space in these cities. With strong population driving demand, there is plenty of opportunity for the development community. To achieve the next level, much more help is needed from city planners and all levels of government to support the production of new supply.

• Hybrid work won’t doom the office market. Companies want their people back in a collaborative environment to promote connection, creativity, culture, and productivity.

• Governments and planners should focus their efforts on fast-tracking permissions, alleviating development and housing taxes, and prioritizing major public works projects.

These are challenges and conversations that Jon Love doesn’t shy away from. Dig into these topics and more by listening to this episode of Colliers Talks.

Flexible office space isn’t new, and demand is rising. Demand was rising before the pandemic and it’s only accelerated in the last few years.

This is just one of the key takeaways from the latest episode of Colliers Talks, Flex Space: The Next Evolution. Colliers’ Lisa Blacklock sat down with WeWork’s Nick DeMarinis, IWG’s Wayne Berger, and Colliers’ Sarah Bramley to give us an inside look at the possibilities, misconceptions, and trends in flex space adoption, along with factors companies should take into account when considering it as part of their future space strategy.

"The one thing that Sam and I had was our reputation. We didn’t have years and years’ worth of development. The one promise we made to every broker and landowner was that if we put a property under contract, we would take it to the finish line,” explains Mike Jager, Co-Founder of RoseFellow, a Montreal-based leader in real estate development and management focused on integrity, sustainability, and innovation. “We guarantee to conduct thorough due diligence when we're under contract, and we will close the deal unless we find plutonium underground."

Over perfectly decanted glasses of Bruno Gimaldi Barlo, Arnold Fox, Executive Vice President and Jean-Marc Dubé, Executive Vice President and Industrial Group Practice Lead, both with Colliers Montreal, speak with Mike Jager and Sam Tsoumas, the co-founders of RoseFellow, a non-traditional real estate company that's disrupting the industry with its unique branding and authentic approach.

In this episode, Arnold, Jean-Marc, Mike, and Sam explore:

● How the pandemic allowed RoseFellow’s founders to focus on their strengths in development and site acquisition

● How the lack of availability of quality industrial space across Canada is influencing growth and rental rates in the market

● The impact of automation, emerging markets and e-commerce on the Canadian industrial real estate sector

● The need for increased sustainability in this sector and how developers, contractors and investors can work towards delivering more environmentally-friendly buildings

● Predictions for the national industrial market post-pandemic

● A comparison of Montreal’s industrial market to those of Vancouver and Toronto and the potential for Calgary

● The future of the Canadian real estate market with continued growth and innovation driven by changes in consumer behaviour and technological advancements

So sit back, pour yourself a glass of Bruno Gimaldi Barlo, and join us for an insightful and engaging discussion.