All-Hands Effort By CBRE Leases Up Bayers Lake Industrial Park in Halifax

Gary MacKenzie and an all-hands effort from his CBRE colleagues across Canada helped Skyline Industrial REIT to fully lease Bayers Lake Industrial Centre (“BLIC”), its 400,000 sq. ft. zero-carbon industrial park in Halifax.

The lease up of the property – one of Atlantic Canada’s largest industrial facilities, comprising two buildings at 125 and 265 Julius Blvd. – included the single biggest industrial speculative lease on record in Halifax and accounted for the majority of industrial space leased this year in the region.

“With a major city’s building success being announced, it can be easy to overlook the hard work, strategy and perseverance that goes into a landmark real estate outcome,” says MacKenzie. “This is a story worth telling.”

Reason for Celebration

Bayers Lake is within minutes of major highways, rail routes, and two major Atlantic Canada ports: PSA Fairview Cove Terminal and PSA Atlantic Hub Terminal.

BLIC was developed by Guelph, ON-based Skyline Industrial REIT along with project partners Lindsay Construction and Secure Capital. Skyline Industrial REIT holds a majority interest in the development through a joint venture with Secure Capital and Lindsay Construction.

Skyline Industrial REIT President Mike Bonneveld said the leasing of Bayers Lake “demonstrates the strength of Skyline’s development strategy and our team’s ability to deliver well-positioned Class A industrial space.”

The two buildings that make up BLIC have been leased by three separate tenants.

Building A (230,235 sq. ft.) is 100% leased to ID Logistics, a global third-party logistics provider with a growing Canadian footprint. Two-thirds of Building B (113,547 sq. ft.) is leased to a Canadian warehouse, distributor, and logistics group. The remaining 57,345 sq. ft. of Building B is leased to F3 Group Inc., a local construction and development firm with a strong presence in Eastern Canada.

“Halifax is experiencing a resurgence in industrial market demand following a quiet 2025,” Bonneveld said. ”By developing Bayers Lake Industrial Centre in the heart of what is known as the Ultra Atlantic Gateway, we were able to capitalize on that demand.”

There have been few new multi-tenant industrial builds over the last three to five years in Halifax and the market is tightening due to constricted inventory following a period of high activity in the second half of 2025. And there is currently only 16,000 sq. ft. of additional industrial space under construction, according to CBRE’s Q2 Figures.

Years in the Making

Gary MacKenzie says the full lease-up of Bayers Lake Industrial Centre marks the culmination of a process that began four years ago, when CBRE first attempted to do pre-leasing during the concept phase of the speculative industrial build.

At one point a deal for the larger of the centre’s two buildings fell through, according to MacKenzie. Then mounting unrest and uncertainty in the Middle East effectively put the Halifax industrial market on pause.

“Suez Canal issues began impacting Port of Halifax shipping traffic, which had been on an upward trajectory,” he says. “There seemed to be one hurdle after another for industrial activity.”

MacKenzie and his team eventually decided it was time for a full reset of the Bayers Lake development.

CBRE engaged its national Project Marketing team, led by Iris Munro, which oversaw a rebranding of the industrial project and a social media campaign to promote it. MacKenzie also tapped the industrial expertise of CBRE Vancouver Managing Director Jason Kiselbach and CBRE Toronto West Managing Director Adrian Lee. “It was all hands on deck,” MacKenzie says. “Everyone's input was extremely valuable.”

The effort involved putting up billboards at the competing Burnside Industrial Park in Dartmouth, on the other side of the harbour from Bayers Lake. “There has always been resistance from tenants not wanting to cross the harbour because their competitors and employees all prefer to be on the Dartmouth side,” MacKenzie explains. “So that was another hurdle we had to get across and the billboards helped.”

CBRE’s team conducted a targeted call campaign to 1,000 companies in Halifax, printed 5,000 postcards and hand delivered them to every tenant in the market. MacKenzie says CBRE Toronto North’s Spencer Mussett leaned in to create an awareness campaign for Bayers Lake with his clients. “At the end of his calls he’d say, ‘Are you aware we also have something in Halifax?’”

The team also introduced incentives. “The larger area someone leased by a certain date, there was a tenant inducement,” says MacKenzie. “And that probably had the most impact on the market; that got the interest going.”

Ultimately ID Logistics took all of Building A, a deal facilitated by CBRE’s Fraser McKenna, who represents the firm. The unnamed warehousing and logistics group took two-thirds of Building B, with the remainder going to F3 Group. After years of effort, Bayers Lake Industrial Centre’s 400,000 sq. ft. of premium space had been snapped up in short order.

“Activity suddenly went from 0 to 100 and we finalized the deals in a matter of months,” MacKenzie says. “Halifax doesn’t tend to see many speculative industrial builds, and this is the largest spec lease ever. So that’s pretty impressive.”

Demand Grows Amid DND Spending

MacKenzie notes that Prime Minister Mark Carney’s announcement of $15 billion in Department of National Defence (DND) spending in Halifax over the next decade “created quite a reverberation around here. It ramped up interest for every kind of commercial real estate asset class, including the industrial properties we had on offer.”

With Bayers Lake Industrial Centre all spoken for DND-spending related requirements for industrial properties over 100,000 sq. ft. face grim prospects at the moment. “We just don't have the product,” MacKenzie says.

“Leasing this project dropped industrial availability in the market by 300 basis points. We don’t have any wiggle room. Future industrial leasing will rely on enticing larger developers and new market entrants to come in and do spec builds, but that will take some time.”

“Skyline made a bold bet with Bayers Lake Industrial Centre and it really paid off,” MacKenzie adds. “The hope is that this encourages others to follow suit and have similar success.

“Because quality industrial space is desperately needed in Halifax right now.”