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NEW GLASGOW, NS, July 13, 2017 /CNW/ – Crombie Real Estate Investment Trust ("Crombie" or the "REIT") (TSX: CRR.UN) announced that it has closed on the acquisition of a property located at 1215-1255 McCowan Road in Toronto, Ontario from a third party vendor for a purchase price of $42.0 million, excluding closing adjustments and transaction costs.
The site includes 4.5 acres of land located next to the McCowan TTC Station. The property is currently income producing and consists of a 100% occupied 61,000 square foot FreshCo anchored strip retail plaza. FreshCo is the discount banner of Sobeys Inc. operating in Ontario. "Our initial assessment is that there is opportunity to add significant residential density to this site over time as the property is currently not utilized at its highest and best use," stated Donald E. Clow, FCPA, CPA, President and CEO.
The acquisition of this property adds to Crombie's existing pipeline of development sites which as of March 31st, 2017 consisted of 19 properties representing up to 6,500 residential units and total estimated cost to develop of $2 to $3 billion. These 20 sites are positioned as follows: Toronto GTA (3), Vancouver (9), Calgary & Edmonton (4), Halifax (3) and St John's (1).
Mr. Clow added, "These tremendous opportunities exemplify Crombie's strategic advantage of having a strong relationship with a leading national grocery retailer. Through close collaboration with our largest tenant Sobeys Inc., we are confident we can create significant incremental Unitholder value over the medium to long term."
About Crombie
Crombie is an open-ended real estate investment trust established under, and governed by, the laws of the Province of Ontario. Crombie currently owns a portfolio of 283 income producing properties across Canada, comprising approximately 19.2 million square feet with a strategy to own, operate and develop a portfolio of high quality grocery and drug store anchored shopping centres and freestanding stores and mixed use developments primarily in Canada's top urban and suburban markets.
This news release contains forward-looking statements that reflect the current expectations of management of Crombie about Crombie's future results, performance, achievements, prospects and opportunities. Wherever possible, words such as "continue", "may", "will", "estimate", "anticipate", "believe", "expect", "intend" and similar expressions have been used to identify these forward-looking statements. These statements, including statements regarding the development potential of the acquired property and Crombie's other development sites and the total estimated cost to develop these sites, reflect current beliefs and are based on information currently available to management of Crombie. Forward-looking statements necessarily involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties.
A number of factors, including the risk that changing market conditions may affect the commercial viability of particular development opportunities, the possibility that actual costs to develop are higher than currently estimated, limits on Crombie's ability to develop its pipeline of development properties in a timely manner due to operational constraints or constraints associated with Crombie's status as a real estate investment trust, and those risks discussed in the 2016 annual Management Discussion and Analysis under "Risk Management", could cause actual results, performance, achievements, prospects or opportunities to differ materially from the results discussed or implied in the forward-looking statements. These factors should be considered carefully and a reader should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements. There can be no assurance that the expectations of management of Crombie will prove to be correct.
Additional information relating to Crombie can be found on Crombie's web site at www.crombiereit.com or on the SEDAR web site for Canadian regulatory filings at www.sedar.com.
SOURCE Crombie REIT