Central Station: what will become of it?
If you’d asked me, I would’ve assumed Central Station was public property. Not so. A company owns it, can sell it off, and people can come up with schemes to profit by it as if it was just so much random square footage.
Jonathan 11:56 on 2019-11-16 Permalink
Imagine if the city was ambitious enough to use the droit de préemption to acquire this expensive piece of land and hand it over the the SHDM… Imagine a huge project with affordable, social and inclusive housing in the very heart of downtown. That would be an amazing thing for inclusive city planning.
Chris 12:17 on 2019-11-16 Permalink
I assumed CN owned it.
Ephraim 13:43 on 2019-11-16 Permalink
TSE: CUF.UN owns it, they own 334 buildings in total. Dividend is about 5%, with a price target of $15. That would bring the dividend down a bit. But REITs like this are pretty effecient at keeping value on commercial property and keeping it in good condition. They actually own Alexis Nihon Plaza and a few buildings in the area. They also own Rockland, Mail Champlain, Place Longueuil… well run. Makes me wonder why they haven’t been bought by an even bigger REIT, like RioCan or Smartcentres, both of which are at least double if not triple their size with higher yields… which suggests the exact problem with why they are seeking to maximize value on the space…. they aren’t making enough money from it.
Max 14:55 on 2019-11-17 Permalink
Homburg owner the station for a while, per the wiki page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Central_Station
Those three blocks were envisaged as a real-estate development right from the beginning, so this latest scheme is just keeping up the tradition. Hopefully Cominar will find a way to do away with that horrid parking structure in the process.