BGO has acquired the 300,000-plus-square-foot Rockwood Plaza at 4141 Dixie Rd. in Mississauga, Ont. from The Sitzer Group.

“It had been held by that private owner for a number of decades and, as sometimes happens with private owners, there are a lot of considerations that go into a sale decision,” BGO Canada managing partner and chief investment officer Simon Holmes told RENX.

“It sounds like, from what I've picked up, that there was a consensus that it was the right time to seek some liquidity by the seller.”

The Sitzer Group was founded in 1957 and is a privately owned property developer and manager specializing in shopping centres anchored by grocery stores, drug stores and banks in and around the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). The Ontario-based company owns 17 retail plazas.

Holmes declined to divulge the purchase price, but Green Street News reported it as $90 million.

Significant investor interest in Rockwood Plaza

Rockwood Plaza was marketed by Institutional Property Advisors and Holmes said there was “significant interest” in the property, as necessity-based retail is on the radar for a number of institutional investors these days. 

The bid date occurred the same week as United States president Donald Trump announced a broad package of import duties on countries around the world. 

“I think that provided or introduced a little bit of market uncertainty to some investors,” Holmes said, “and I think the fact that we've got a very long-term strategy where we're thinking through the news cycle probably gave us competitive positioning to be able to bid with confidence and ultimately be the winning bidder.”

Rockwood Plaza is anchored by a longstanding Food Basics and supported by other national retailers, including Winners, HomeSense, Shoppers Drug Mart, Dollarama and three major banks. It has a strong track record of tenant tenure, with many relationships extending more than two decades. 

The plaza is 95 per cent leased and tenants have a weighted average lease term of just under four years. Rents are at or near market levels and have “a little bit of upside,” according to Holmes.

“There are long-term tenancies with some tenants, with some long-term renewal options, which provides some great stability,” Holmes noted. “But that’s combined with a little bit of flexibility in certain parts of the mall as well.” 

The majority of the key tenants have exterior entrances while most of the vacant space is in the mall’s small enclosed area.

Rockwood Plaza occupies a 23.7-acre site at Burnhamthorpe and Dixie roads. It offers easy connectivity to major transportation routes — including highways 401, 403, 427 and the Queen Elizabeth Way — and is near both the Dixie GO Transit station and Mississauga Transitway.

“It's great to be able to source one of these properties in a very central location within the GTA,” said Holmes. “These properties don't typically come up for sale very often.”

Short- and long-term plans

BGO Properties — the in-house property management, operations and leasing team — will seek to enhance Rockwood Plaza’s performance and make it more attractive to tenants and consumers through capital improvements, tenant engagement and strategic leasing.

“There's a lot that works very, very well and there's a great established tenant base, and we want to continue to nurture relationships with those tenants,” said Holmes. “But there are also some opportunities to reposition and add some new tenancies in certain parts of the centre.”

Occupying almost 24 acres of land with favourable zoning in the centre of Mississauga also puts the site in consideration for long-term redevelopment, though Holmes doesn’t envision that happening for at least 10 years.

BGO’s Prime Canadian Property Strategy

BGO acquired Rockwood Plaza on behalf of its Prime Canadian Property Strategy, a core, open-ended fund with a 40-plus-year track record of delivering low-risk types of returns to its institutional investor base.

“We're looking for opportunities across all property types and we're in a bit of a unique position,” Holmes said. “We've seen a healthy amount of new investor commitment and capital inflows into the fund, which means we can be actively deploying at a point in time in the real estate cycle when some other institutional investors are on the sidelines. 

“We’re looking at opportunities such as this one: well-located, high-quality properties that are accretive from a yield perspective. Thinking about that income yield is paramount to a lot of what we do within the fund.”

The diversified fund owns properties in the four major asset classes. Its most recent activity has been focused on grocery and necessity-based retail as well as multifamily.

Holmes said BGO has a “robust pipeline” of acquisition opportunities across different asset classes.

“I think 2025 will prove to be a very compelling vintage for groups that have capital to deploy. These windows in the market, where some capital is on the sidelines, rarely last long in Canada. 

“So we're aiming to be as active as possible to acquire high-quality properties with compelling going-in yields and below replacement costs.”

About BGO

BGO is part of SLC Management, the institutional alternatives and traditional asset management business of Sun Life.

The real estate investment management advisor and services provider has offices in 25 cities across 12 countries. It’s involved in the asset management of office, industrial, multiresidential, retail and hospitality properties and serves over 750 institutional clients.

BGO had approximately U.S.$89 billion of assets under management globally on June 30. 

The company had more than 940 employees in Canada managing more than 455 properties encompassing more than 70 million square feet on that same date.