Bloomberg News as copied in the Globe and Mail is telling of a combined venture on Yonge Street at the Summerhill crossroads with the former CP Rail station. The parties are RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust, Tricon Capital Group Inc. and Diamond Corp. They are said to be planning to develop a combined retail and residential project in the area. The joint venture agreed to buy the real estate – a row of high-end boutiques and a block of land – for $85-million, sources tell Bloomberg. RioCan’s interest is said to be in the retail portion, and it intends to buy into the high-rise rental tower and new retail development planned for the site, the people said. The deal is for the Shops of Summerhill, with about 31,000 square feet of fully occupied retail space, and an adjoining block of land that contains a four-storey office building and a parking lot with the potential for a high-rise tower, the people said. Other investors have agreed to take stakes in two additional properties in Woodcliffe’s Summerhill portfolio: a defunct train station built in 1915 that now houses one of the largest LCBO stores, and a development site that contains a low-rise office property that can be expanded to a nine-storey tower, the people said.
