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This is for the land currently owned by Provigo on the corner of de Maisonneuve and Claremont on the south east corner. There was a public consultation for residents and the following is the project: 30k square feet for grocery store (Provigo Urban concept) 10 apartments for families of kids who are staying at hospital Office space for Children's foundation 255 senior apartments for 55+ from le Groupe Maurice Not a very nice looking building! 10 story building Construction summer/fall 2015 Opening 2017-2018

Trump Files Suit Against Lenders Developer Seeks to Extend $640 Million Loan on a Chicago Skyscraper Wsj.com By ALEX FRANGOS Tall Trouble: Donald Trump's Chicago skyscraper project, the Trump International Hotel & Tower, during construction in July. Mr. Trump is suing to extend a $640 million senior construction loan on the 92-story Trump International Hotel & Tower from a group of lenders led by Deutsche Bank AG and including a unit of Merrill Lynch & Co., Union Labor Life Insurance Co., iStar Financial Inc., a publicly traded real-estate investment trust, and Highland Funds, a unit of Highland Capital Management LP. The tower, which contains 339 hotel rooms and 486 condominiums, will be the second-tallest building in the U.S. behind Chicago's Sears Tower and is expected to be completed in mid-2009. The hotel, on the lower floors, opened earlier this year. But sales of both the hotel rooms and the condominiums have come in below original estimates and the project's current projected revenue remains short by nearly $100 million needed to pay off the senior lenders. The lawsuit, filed in New York State supreme court in Queens, is a further indication of the dysfunction in the real-estate lending markets as borrowers and lenders struggle to resolve troubled projects. People familiar with the matter say the lender group, which is made up of more than a dozen institutions, was unable to agree on the extension. The suit demands -- among other things -- that an extension provision in the original loan agreement be triggered because of the "unprecedented financial crisis in the credit markets now prevailing, in part due to acts Deutsche Bank itself participated in." This so-called force majeure provision is common in contracts and can be applied to acts of war and natural disasters. Mr. Trump already extended the loan once in May. From the Archives Mr. Trump asked for $3 billion in damages. The suit won't affect construction of the project, according to people familiar who say there is enough money to complete the $90 million work that is left. The suit says Mr. Trump attempted to resolve the impasse by offering to buy the project's unsold hotel units for $97 million. That money would be used to pay down the construction loan, along with the $204 million in proceeds from closed units and the $353 million that is expected from units that close in the next six months. A Deutsche Bank spokesman declined to comment. Mr. Trump has put $77 million of his own equity into the tower, which he would stand to lose in a potential foreclosure. Other than a $40 million guarantee to complete the project, Mr. Trump has no recourse obligations to the project. A Trump spokesman declined to comment. [Trump, Donald] Deutsche Bank originated the construction loan in 2005 and sold off most of it to others, retaining less than $10 million of exposure on that loan. The suit alleges that Deutsche Bank compromised the senior construction loan by selling pieces off to "so many institutions, banks, junk bond firms, and virtually anybody that seemed to come along," that the lending group is unable to come to a consensus on how to deal with the matter. It also alleges Deutsche Bank created a "serious conflict of interest" by taking a separate stake in the project's so-called mezzanine loan that was originated by private-equity firm Fortress Investment Group. The mezzanine loan, which is junior to the senior construction loan, had an original principal of $130 million but will eventually accrue to $360 million. Deutsche Bank purchased roughly one-quarter of the mezzanine loan, according to people familiar with the matter. The suit names the mezzanine lenders as defendants, including Fortress and its affiliates, Newcastle Investment Corp. and Drawbridge Special Opportunities Fund, as well as Dune Capital Management and Blackacre Institutional Capital Management, the real-estate arm of Cerberus Capital Management. Fortress didn't respond to a request for comment. The other lenders declined to comment. Unless sales of the condo and hotel units restart despite the worst housing market in generations, and quickly generate $400 million in new sales, it will be difficult for the project to pay off the mezzanine loan, which comes due in May 2009.

(Courtesy of the Financial Post)

Je vous conseille de lire l'histoire, très intéressante ! http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a3uKf5P1lFmg&refer=home Madoff Confessed $50 Billion Fraud Before FBI Arrest (Update1) By David Voreacos and David Glovin Dec. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Bernard Madoff confessed to employees this week that his investment advisory business was “a giant Ponzi scheme” that cost clients $50 billion before two FBI agents showed up yesterday morning at his Manhattan apartment. “We’re here to find out if there’s an innocent explanation,” Agent Theodore Cacioppi told Madoff, who founded Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC and was the former head of the Securities Industry Association’s trading committee. “There is no innocent explanation,” Madoff, 70, told the agents, saying he traded and lost money for institutional clients. He said he “paid investors with money that wasn’t there” and expected to go to jail. With that, agents arrested Madoff, according to an FBI complaint. The 8:30 a.m. arrest capped the downfall of Madoff and businesses bearing his name that specialized in trading securities, making markets, and advising wealthy clients. Many questions remain unanswered, including whether Madoff’s clients actually lost $50 billion. The complaint and a civil lawsuit by regulators describe a man spinning out of control. Madoff appeared in federal court in Manhattan at 6 p.m., wearing a white-striped shirt and dark-colored pants. U.S. Magistrate Judge Douglas Eaton described the securities-fraud charge against him and set a $10 million bond at a hearing where Madoff said nothing. Madoff later posted the bond, secured by his apartment and guaranteed by his wife. Hedge Funds, Banks Madoff’s firm had about $17.1 billion in assets under management as of Nov. 17, according to NASD records. At least half of its clients were hedge funds, and others included banks and wealthy individuals, according to the records. The firm was the 23rd-largest market maker on Nasdaq in October, handling an average of about 50 million shares a day, exchange data show. It took orders from online brokers for some of the largest U.S. companies, including General Electric Co. and Citigroup Inc. Prosecutors joined the Securities and Exchange Commission, which filed a civil lawsuit, in scrambling to unravel the collapse of Madoff’s Investment Securities business. The broker-dealer and investment adviser was housed in a lipstick-shaped building at 885 Third Ave. A rapid series of events in early December preceded the firm’s demise, according to the arrest complaint and SEC lawsuit. In the first week of December, Madoff told a worker identified as Senior Employee No. 2 that clients had requested $7 billion in redemptions, he was struggling to find liquidity, and he thought he could do so, according to the FBI and SEC. ‘Under Great Stress’ Senior employees “previously understood” that the investment advisory business managed between $8 billion and $15 billion in assets, according to the documents. On Dec. 9, Madoff told a colleague identified as Senior Employee No. 1 that he wanted to pay bonuses in December, or two months earlier than usual. The next day, Madoff got a visit at his offices from the employees. They said he appeared “under great stress” in prior weeks, according to the documents. Madoff told the visitors that “he had recently made profits through business operations, and that now was a good time to distribute it,” according to the FBI complaint. When the workers challenged that explanation, Madoff said he “wasn’t sure he would be able to hold it together” at the office and preferred to meet at his apartment, Senior Employee No. 2 told investigators. He ran his investment advisory business from a separate floor of his firm’s offices, keeping financial statements “under lock and key,” prosecutors said. ‘One Big Lie’ At his apartment, Madoff told the employees that his investment advisory business was a “fraud” and he was “finished,” according to the FBI complaint. He said he had “absolutely nothing,” that “it’s all just one big lie,” and that it was “basically, a giant Ponzi scheme,” Agent Cacioppi wrote in the complaint. The senior employees understood Madoff to be saying he had paid investors for years out of principal from other investors, the agent wrote. The business had been insolvent for years, said Madoff, who then estimated losses at more than $50 billion. Madoff said he had $200 million to $300 million left, and he planned to pay employees, family, and friends. Madoff, who had also confessed to a third senior employee, said he planned to surrender to authorities within a week, according to the complaint. Cacioppi and another agent beat Madoff to the punch. After saying he had no “innocent explanation,” Madoff confessed “it was all his fault,” Cacioppi wrote. ‘Broke,’ ‘Insolvent’ “Madoff also said that he was ‘broke’ and ‘insolvent’ and that he had decided that ‘it could not go on,’ and that he expected to go to jail,” the agent wrote. “Madoff also stated that he had recently admitted what he had done to Senior Employee Nos. 1, 2, and 3.” Madoff founded the firm in 1960 after leaving law school at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, according to the company’s Web site. His brother, Peter, joined the firm in 1970 after graduating from law school, it said. Madoff, who owned more than 75 percent of his firm, and his brother Peter, are the only two listed on regulatory records as “direct owners and executive officers.” Madoff was influential with the Nasdaq Stock Market, serving as chairman of the board of directors, according to the FBI complaint. He was chief of the Securities Industry Association’s trading committee in the 1990s and earlier this decade. He represented brokerages in talks with regulators about new stock-market rules as electronic-trading systems and networks grew. Madoff, who founded his firm in 1960, won an assignment to manage a $450,000 stock offering for A.L.S. Steel Corp. of Corona, New York, two years later, according to an SEC news digest. He was an early advocate for electronic trading, joining roundtable discussions with SEC regulators considering trading stocks in penny increments. His firm was among the first to make markets in New York Stock Exchange listed stocks outside of the Big Board, relying instead on Nasdaq. Madoff’s Web site advertises the “high ethical standards” of his firm. “In an era of faceless organizations owned by other equally faceless organizations, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC harks back to an earlier era in the financial world: The owner’s name is on the door. Clients know that Bernard Madoff has a personal interest in maintaining the unblemished record of value, fair-dealing, and high ethical standards that has always been the firm’s hallmark.” The case is U.S. v. Madoff, 08-MAG-02735, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

A $45-million investment by Ivanhoe Cambridge - Place Vertu Gets a Makeover MONTREAL, Nov. 29 /CNW Telbec/ - Place Vertu, owned and managed by Ivanhoe Cambridge, is happy to announce a $45-million investment (including all related fees) in the shopping centre, located in the borough of Saint-Laurent in Montreal, to carry out a large-scale redevelopment project. Construction work for this much-anticipated undertaking, designed to revitalize the property and its retail mix, began in the summer of 2007 and will wrap up in the spring of 2009. "We are very enthusiastic about renovating Place Vertu. This project is in keeping with our strategy to continuously enhance our properties and strengthen their market position and share," said Jean Laramée, Senior Vice President, Eastern Region, Ivanhoe Cambridge. "This is excellent news for Place Vertu and its customers!" said Michael Bonetto, General Manager of Place Vertu. "The project will enable Place Vertu to take full advantage of its strategic location in the heart of Saint-Laurent, one of the fastest-growing communities on the Island of Montreal. Naturally, we will be doing everything we can to minimize any inconvenience to our tenants and ensure that our customers can continue to shop undisturbed." The main highlights of the project are as follows: << - Closing of The Bay, and relocation of Zellers into the vacated premises, with its brand-new Zellers + concept (120,000 square feet over two floors). Official opening scheduled for December 1, 2007. - Expansion, reconfiguration and renovation of the food court to make it more cosy and appealing. Expected completion: Spring 2008. - Expansion of several stores and arrival of new retailers. - Indoor and outdoor renovations and addition of decorative elements to complement the centre's overall design. Construction of new entrances and modernization of the façade along Côte-Vertu Boulevard. >> The project is already generating a great deal of interest among retailers, and talks are currently under way with a number of potential tenants. Leasing agreements were recently signed or scheduled to be signed very shortly with Winners, which will occupy some 25,000 square feet as of summer 2008, Browns Shoes Outlet, Lace Canada (a high-end women's fashion retailer), La Vie en Rose/Aqua, Urban Planet and a 25,000-square-foot specialized grocery store. About Place Vertu Located in the borough of Saint-Laurent in Montreal, a stone's throw away from one of Canada's largest industrial parks, Place Vertu opened for business in 1975. Today, it features four anchor tenants and some 155 stores and services. Its gross leasable area, including an office component, is nearly 924,000 square feet and it greets close to 6.5 million shoppers every year. Place Vertu is owned and managed by Ivanhoe Cambridge.