SmartCentres Real Estate Investment Trust is a Canadian

real estate investment trust A real estate investment trust (REIT, pronounced "reet") is a company that owns, and in most cases operates, income-producing real estate. REITs own many types of real estate, including office and apartment buildings, studios, warehouses, hos ...

, based in

Vaughan Vaughan ( ) (2022 population 344,412) is a city in Ontario, Canada. It is located in the Regional Municipality of York, just north of Toronto. Vaughan was the fastest-growing municipality in Canada between 1996 and 2006 with its population increa ...

, Ontario. It specializes in retail real estate, especially power centres. Almost all of its malls have

Walmart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores in the United States and 23 other ...

as a tenant; SmartCentre's logo features a family of

penguin Penguins are a group of aquatic flightless birds from the family Spheniscidae () of the order Sphenisciformes (). They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere. Only one species, the Galápagos penguin, is equatorial, with a sm ...

s with shopping bags. SmartCentres cobranded Penguin Pickup with Walmart at a lot of the SmartCentres locations, to merge Bricks & Mortar and e-commerce. It is listed on the

Toronto Stock Exchange The Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX; ) is a stock exchange located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the List of stock exchanges, 10th largest exchange in the world and the third largest in North America based on market capitalization. Based in th ...

(symbol ), with a market capitalization of about $4.74 billion as of February 2019.

History

SmartCentres was founded in 1994 by Mitchell Goldar, as FirstPro Shopping Centres. It was renamed SmartCentres Inc. in 2006. In 2015, it was taken over by Calloway REIT, which then renamed itself SmartREIT. It changed its name to SmartCentres REIT in 2017. As of 2011, SmartCentres had opened a new mall once every 3 weeks for its history. As of 2015, it had developed 50 million square feet of space.

Relationship with Calloway REIT

In 2003, SmartCentres (then FirstPro) began to sell some of its malls to Calloway REIT, then a small REIT based in Calgary, to raise additional funds for construction. Its first transaction was the sale of nine malls for $100 million in November 2003. In 2004, 12 malls were sold for $300 million. In 2005, it sold 35 malls for $1.1 billion. This transaction doubled the size of Calloway, and led to Goldar greatly increasing his control and equity stake in Calloway. In 2006, SmartCentres sold 16 properties, worth $1 billion, to Calloway. In 2008, it sold 6 malls for $375 million. In 2015, SmartCentres was formally taken over by Calloway REIT for $1.1 billion. As a result of the deal, Calloway acquired 24 properties.

Controversies

SmartCentres has been involved in a number of controversial developments, often because of its close association with Walmart. In the late 2000s, there was considerable opposition to a SmartCentres plan to build a power centre in eastern Toronto. The plan was eventually turned down by the

Ontario Municipal Board The Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) was an independent administrative board, operated as an adjudicative tribunal, in the province of Ontario, Canada. It heard applications and appeals on municipal and planning disputes, as well as other matters s ...

. In 2009, its shopping mall in

Salmon Arm Salmon Arm is a city in the Columbia Shuswap Regional District of the Southern Interior of the Canadian province of British Columbia that has a population of 19,432 (2021). Salmon Arm was voted the best community in British Columbia in 2019. Salm ...

, British Columbia was delayed because of environmental concerns. The mall was eventually built in 2013.

Properties

SmartCentres properties are generally suburban power centres, with

as a lead tenant. As of 2016, 72% of SmartCentres properties were anchored by Walmart, with Walmart responsible for 26% of rent and 42% of area. However, in recent years, SmartCentres has been diversifying into more urban and mixed-use properties. For instance, SmartCentres is one of the main developers of the

Vaughan Metropolitan Centre Vaughan Metropolitan Centre is the city centre of Vaughan, Ontario, Canada. Measuring , the district is located at the intersection of Highway 7 and Jane Street (Toronto), Jane Street, northeast of the Ontario Highway 400, Highway 400 and Ontario ...

, a planned central business district for

, Ontario, a

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

suburb, where a bus terminal serving a

subway station A metro station or subway station is a train station for a rapid transit system, which as a whole is usually called a "metro" or "subway". A station provides a means for passengers to purchase Train ticket, tickets, board trains, and Emerg ...

is named after the company, who contributed funding to its construction. SmartCentres is also the main developer of StudioCentre, a

mixed-use development Mixed use is a type of urban development, urban design, urban planning and/or a zoning classification that blends multiple uses, such as residential, commercial, cultural, institutional, or entertainment, into one space, where those functions ...

in the

Leslieville Leslieville is a neighbourhood in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated east of the Don River. It is bounded by the Canadian National railway line and Gerrard Street to the north, McGee Street to the west, Eastern Avenue to south, and Coxwell ...

neighbourhood of Toronto. SmartCentres has also considered converting some of its properties into warehouse space. As of 2017, SmartCentres had 154 shopping centres and $9.4 billion worth in assets. 60% of its revenue was from Ontario, 15% was from Quebec, 9% was from British Columbia, and the other 16% was from the rest of Canada.

Penguin Pick-Up

A number of online delivery pick-up locations, called Penguin Pick-Ups, are located in SmartCentres properties (the locations are owned by Mitchell Goldhar, the SmartCentres chairman, and use the SmartCentres penguin motif). As of January 2018, there are 76 such locations. The original locations were primarily suburban, but some newer locations have been located in urban areas, including some co-branded with Walmart. The locations principally exist to lower Walmart's delivery costs; Walmart charges for home delivery, but only charges a reduced fee for delivery to a Penguin Pick-Up.

References

{{Reflist Companies based in Vaughan Companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange Financial services companies established in 1994 Real estate companies established in 1994 Real estate companies of Canada 1994 establishments in Canada 1994 establishments in Ontario Shopping center management firms Real estate investment trusts of Canada