SmartCentres Announces Closing of Acquisition of SmartVMC City Centre Lands, Becomes Largest Landowner in the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre

Financialpost.com
Dec. 23, 2021

SmartCentres Real Estate Investment Trust (“SmartCentres” or the “REIT”) (TSX:SRU.UN), announced today that it has now closed the previously announced $513 million strategic acquisition of a two-thirds interest in 53 acres, in ‘SmartVMC’, the 100+ acre master-planned City Centre in the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre.

This acquisition more than doubles SmartCentres’ holdings in SmartVMC, consolidating ownership of the full 105-acre, 20 million square foot development property under SmartCentres and The Penguin Group of Companies. By virtue of this transaction, SmartCentres has become the largest landowner in Vaughan’s rapidly growing Downtown.

SmartCentres is building a modern world-class City Centre, directly connected to downtown Toronto via the TTC’s Vaughan Metropolitan Centre Subway Station, located at the centre of the property. Existing permissions on the property include multi-residential, condominium, seniors’ residences, office, retail, schools, recreational, entertainment and other uses.   SmartLiving, SmartCentres’ wholly owned in-house residential development platform, is actively developing thousands of residential units at SmartVMC.

The TSX has approved the issuance of $200 million in SmartCentres REIT Limited Partnership Units to the sellers at $34.50 per unit, exchangeable into SmartCentres REIT Units on a one-for-one basis. “Funding a significant portion of this transaction through equity at $34.50 reinforces the strength of our existing portfolio,” said Mitchell Goldhar, Executive Chairman and CEO of SmartCentres. “This strategic acquisition ensures built-in accretive residential income for the REIT for many years to come and materially accelerates SmartCentres’ transformation to a Diversified REIT.”

The balance of funding is being financed from SmartCentres’ existing credit facilities.