Case Study – Mill Woods

Bayfield purchased Mill Woods Town Centre in early 2011 with RioCan REIT for approximately $94 Million. The property was located in the City of Edmonton in the province of Alberta and was comprised of a 530,000 SF enclosed Mall with a number of pad buildings and a 47,000 SF medical office building.

Bayfield and RioCan attracted Target to the site when HBC contracted to buy a majority of the Zellers  leases across Canada for future Targets. When Target announced that it was leaving Canada, a very large termination fee was obtained as the property had the covenant of Target US with respect to the lease. Subsequent to Target leaving, the building housing the store was demolished resulting in an increase in bottom line income and the centre was kept at a reasonably high occupancy level.

We negotiated with the City of Edmonton to locate the initial terminus of the Valley LRT at the property and were successful in completing a rezoning process which will permit 1,780 residential and 700,000 SF of commercial and retail space on the site.

Bayfield sold its 60% interest in the property to its investor partner RioCan in 2018  on the basis of a value of $120 Million for the property, giving Bayfield investors a profit of approximately $15 Million on an average equity investment of approximately $20 Million. In addition, its investors received distributions during their ownership of the property averaging over 7% per annum annually.