Cominar Inc. was founded in 1965 by Mr. Jules Dallaire, a seasoned Quebec City entrepreneur. The company got its start building and developing residential apartment buildings in the Quebec City area.

In 1973, Cominar built and developed one of the first condominium projects in the province of Quebec: the 20 storey, 200 unit Louisbourg residential tower located across from the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City. Of the approximately 2,500 residential units developed, 1,500 were retained in Cominar’s portfolio.

As Cominar's experience and reputation for delivering real estate projects on time and on budget grew, it increasingly took on larger and more challenging projects that included office, retail, and industrial and mixed-use properties. In 1986, Cominar started work on Place de la Cité, a multi-functional office and retail complex that now has over one million square feet of leasable space.

                       Place de la Cité, Quebec City

From 1965 to 1998, Mr. Dallaire and his team established Cominar as one of the largest owners and managers of commercial properties in the Quebec City region. At the end of this period, Cominar owned a diverse portfolio that included 51 high quality office, retail, and industrial properties with 3.1 million square feet of leasable space.

To accelerate Cominar’s growth, in 1998 Mr. Dallaire created Cominar Real Estate Investment Trust (“Cominar REIT”), an unincorporated closed-end investment trust listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Cominar REIT then acquired the commercial real estate portfolio held by Cominar and Cominar’s entire administrative, maintenance, rental, and management staff were integrated into Cominar REIT, which became the first fully integrated real estate investment trust in Canada. This allowed Cominar REIT to harness the extensive experience of Cominar’s team and ensure that management’s interests fit perfectly with those of unitholders.

Following its creation, Cominar REIT leveraged its domination of the Quebec City commercial real estate market to diversify into the Montreal market. In doing so, Cominar REIT continued to pursue its profitable long term strategy of owning and operating a diversified portfolio of income properties concentrated in a specific regional market.

On June 1, 2007, Cominar concluded its most important transaction to date, being the $574.7 million acquisition of 28 industrial and 19 office properties from Alexis Nihon Real Istate Investment Trust, which represent approximately 6.1 million square feet of leasable space.

On July 6, 2007, Cominar completed this transaction with the acquisition of co-ownerships in seven industriel and mixed-use properties for a total consideration of $17.3 million. The acquisition by the REIT of these co-ownership interests was subject to rights of first refusal in favour of a third party which were not exercised. On February 29, 2008, Cominar acquired the remaining interest in industrial and mixed-use properties located in Montréal that were previously co-owned. Cominar, as a result of this acquisition transaction, is now the sole owner of these income properties. The purchase price amounted to $18.3 million.

Since going public, Cominar REIT has expanded its leasable space from 51 properties with 3.1 million square feet to 242 properties with more than 19.4 million square feet.

Cominar REIT continues the tradition of excellence established by Cominar and combines its acquisition, construction, development, and management expertise with a disciplined and prudent financial strategy to provide unitholders with increasing returns.