From left to right - Gregory Castiel, Director of Commercial Properties, Henry Zavriyev, CEO, Eli Erdstein, Director of Investments (submitted/Leyad)

By Susan McNeil

Real estate sale

Cornerstone shopping district sells for $94 million

Aug 9, 2024 | 5:00 PM

A few months ago, the entire Cornerstone shopping district in Prince Albert sold for $94 million to a Montreal-based firm that sees a lot of potential.

Henry Zavriyev is the CEO of Leyad and said that he sees lots happening in the city over the next five to 10 years, with growth partially due to immigration.

“I think the immigration Canada is experiencing is going to generally positively impact Prince Albert,” he said.

He also pointed to some of the infrastructure investments that are happening now.

The two major projects currently underway are the aquatics/ice centre in The Yard District and a major expansion of the Victoria Hospital.

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Premier Scott Moe said during the groundbreaking ceremony for the expansion that the plan is for Victoria Hospital to serve all northern Saskatchewan’s health needs.

“We think it’s under people’s radar,” said Zavriyev said.

As an outside investor, he said that right now, most of the capital in the city is local people so his company jumped on the opportunity when it came up.

Cornerstone right now is about 550,000 square feet of building on 80 acres of land. Leyad bought it from Choice REIT, subsidiary of Loblaws which owns Super Store and the Real Canadian Wholesale Club.

The company said the fact that most of the buildings were built in the last 10 years is one of the selling features.

With several parcels of land in Cornerstone still undeveloped, Zavriyev said that talks are already underway to find businesses to fill them.

“We’re in active discussions with different potential tenants and we’re hoping to pull them up soon,” he said. “There’s definitely a lot of interest.”

Mayor Greg Dionne said that the transaction can only be a good thing for the city.

“I’m always excited when a property sells. If the property sells, that means the new owner has capital to improve the property and also has the vision for the property which is going to make it better for us,” he said.

The sale is one of the biggest commercial real estate transactions in Saskatchewan in the last five years, information they got from a commercial appraiser that tracks data like that.

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susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com