Many longtime Calgarians remember when the Quarry Park neighbourhood was a sprawling hole long used as a gravel pit.
An ongoing reinvention of the area east of the downtown core has transformed it to the point where it has attracted investment from Fiera Real Estate CORE Fund, as the Montreal firm purchased three recently built apartment complexes.
The trio of 13-floor residential high-rises Fiera bought are at 85, 87 and 89 Quarry Park Road in the Alberta city, and they contain a total of 333 apartments. Roughly 80% of the apartments are one-bedroom units, and the rest have two bedrooms.
Fiera bought the properties from Remington Development Corp. for an undisclosed price. The new owner expressed satisfaction with the purchase in Canada’s fastest-growing city.
“The recent acquisition highlights the momentum and growth associated with the Calgary market, underpinned by its strong population growth, limited supply, and solid income profile,” William Secnik, Fiera’s senior managing director and fund manager, wrote in an email to CoStar News.
Fiera Real Estate CORE Fund contains more than 46% industrial properties, according to its most recent report. The Calgary purchase adds to its 11.3% residential component. “The Fiera Core Fund’s increased exposure to this resilient asset type addresses a strategic addition to its diverse portfolio, an asset patiently pursued given changing market conditions,” Secnik said.
About 10% of the fund's assets are invested in the province of Alberta, with roughly 52% in Ontario, according to company data. The fund requires investors provide a minimum of $2 million.
Fiera Capital has been led for the past two years by Jean-Guy Desjardins and Wenzel Hoberg, who currently heads its real estate division. That arm controls roughly $11.2 billion of the total $165.5 billion worth of assets that Fiera manages.
The Quarry Park area was created after Randy Remington’s Remington Development purchased a large section of the emptied Lafarge gravel pit in 2005 and proceeded to fill it, largely with help from dirt made available when developers excavated downtown sites to prepare them for construction projects.
The Market at Quarry Park shopping centre, located near the three apartment towers that Fiera acquired, attracted its first tenant in 2008. New homes then started opening in the Quarry Park area in 2010, and in 2012 Imperial Oil opened its 20-acre campus of six connected low-rise office buildings.
A YMCA, library, childcare facility and arts centre have also since been built.