Shindico adds six properties to its retail portfolio

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This article was published 31/10/2022 (1382 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Shindico Realty has maintained its top-dog status in Winnipeg’s retail sector.

The commercial real estate firm has added six retail properties to its management portfolio in Manitoba’s capital, to the sum of 52 tenants in 228,018 square feet of space on 15 acres of land.

“We appreciate the opportunity to acquire so many grocery and discount store-anchored properties,” Sandy Shindleman, president of Shindico Realty, told the Free Press in an earlier interview. “We feel that there’s an opportunity to grow them and improve the assets. A new broom sweeps clean and we’re that new broom.”

“There’s a big job for our management team to do.”

The six properties — Moore Centre, Moore Square, Dunkirk Place, Stafford Square, Tyndall Market and 3500 Portage Avenue — were acquired from a local family that is paring down its portfolio.

Two of the tenants, No Frills in Stafford Square and Safeway in Tyndall Market, are two of the more stable tenants Shindico will be managing, as each is locked into long-term leases (at least 15 more years).

Shindleman said Shindico, which manages 5.8 million square feet of commercial real estate and has eight million square feet of partnerships and direct investments across Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba in the pipeline, will investigate what changes can be made to their new assets.

He didn’t disclose what specific alterations could be coming to their new properties, but that it could include a renovation of sorts.

“Just bringing them up to the standard,” Shindleman said. “They were in good shape but we’re just going to continue to improve them as we do with all of our assets, whether it be a new façade or new parking lots.”

The decision to acquire more space in the retail sector, in a post-pandemic world, is a “calculated risk,” in the eyes of David Meyer.

“There is definitely some volatility,” said Meyer, a 35-year commercial agent with Royal LePage Prime, of the current retail market. “When you look at the large shopping centres, the big malls, there’s a lot of vacancies. And I believe that’s primarily to those lease rates are very high compared to smaller storefronts, retail centres and strip malls that have more affordable rents.”

“Certainly with the retail malls, they were hit very hard during the pandemic. As you know, people moved a lot to online type of purchasing. So I think the biggest hit has been since the pandemic, definitely on larger spaces.”

Meyer, who’s filled all five vacancies he’s had in smaller spaces this year, said the small-scale market is improving, as more people like prospective restaurant owners, are opening up to the idea of once again launching their ventures.

He explained the overall sentiment around leasing larger-scale establishments is still a bit murky.

“There’s optimism and improvement,” Meyer said. “Right now, there’s a lot of fear of the unknown because we see things gaining a bit of traction but still, like in some of these centres, you see these big vacancies and you just wonder, ‘How’s it going to improve?’”

While Shindleman admitted rising interest rates have left the value of commercial spaces “all over the board,” Shindico has maintained its aggressive mindset to own as much as possible.

“The point, we want to make sure that there’s lots of work for our people because of the vagarity of the market, up and down, we want to make sure that we offer a stable environment for all the people that work here,” Shindleman said. “So regardless of what the overall market is doing, we stay busy. We don’t have a goal that is ‘so many square feet a year,’ we do as much as we can do.”

Shindico forged its name as being a big player in the retail market but has made a conscious effort to diversify over the years, according to Shindleman. A part of that diversification is converting some of its existing retail sites to multi-residential units, something he said is on the board with some of its assets in Winnipeg.

“There’s a lot of multi-residential high-rises that we’re involved in, in Ontario,” he said. “That’s been a focus. We’re adding multi-residential to many of our legacy retail sites, and there may be opportunities to do that as well with some of the assets that we acquired recently. We will look to highest and best use.”

Shindico is adding flex office spaces to the Plessis Business Park, in the St. Boniface Industrial Park. It’s a type of property that has never graced that land in the company’s three decades of ownership.

While Shindleman confirmed Shindico will build a mid-rise (six-story properties) establishment in East Winnipeg in the coming years, he said it also has plans to add two high-rise buildings to Winnipeg in 2024 and beyond.

jfreysam@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @jfreysam