Hamilton, Ontario
Hamilton holds the clearest demonstration in Canada of what a closed assessment system costs a city: weeks after Ontario's Assessment Review Board accepted MPAC's finding that 411.6 acres of the Stelco lands had "no value in the marketplace" and should be assessed at $100 an acre — $41,160 in total — Stelco sold 806.2 acres of the same waterfront to Slate Asset Management for $518 million, about $643,000 an acre. Downtown works the same way: the city owns the ground under Jackson Square and a private joint venture holds the lease until 2070. Ontario charges $37.10 a parcel to read the register and publishes no roll and no prices, so almost everything else here is known only because somebody reported a transaction.
8 buildings · 7 with an owner established · 17 sources · 7 tier A · 1 tier B · prepared 2026-10-03
Ontario's land registry is the official record of who owns what, and it is public but not open: ServiceOntario's page states it "contains the official records of property ownership and other legal interests such as mortgages, transfers and leases", covers "more than 7.4 million parcels", is "only available online", and that on OnLand "You can do a self-search for a fee" — $37.10 per parcel register under the bulletin effective 2 November 2026. There is no bulk extract at any price and Teraview is for licensed users only. MPAC does not publish an assessment roll and the 2026 tax year still runs on 1 January 2016 values, so the one way a Hamilton assessed value becomes public is through litigation: the Assessment Review Board's 2022 ruling on the Stelco lands is quoted in this record precisely because a tribunal decision is the only route by which an Ontario figure of that kind reaches daylight. Ontario publishes no price-paid file either, so a Hamilton sale price exists only on the individual registered transfer, per parcel, at the same fee. The federal government is barely a landowner in Hamilton — 39 properties and 37 hectares in total — so unlike Ottawa there is no open federal dataset to fall back on.
The marquee buildings
The towers that set the tone of the core, and who holds them. A price is the price a document states, on the date it states — not an estimate of what the building is worth now.
| Building | Use | Owner | Owner type | Last price paid |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Steelport — the former Stelco Hamilton lands Hamilton Harbour waterfront, between Burlington Street and the bay 806.2 acres (326 ha); up to 12 million sq ft of new industrial planned |
Industrial | Slate Asset Management RENX, 1 June 2022: "Slate Asset Management has closed on the $518-million acquisition of approximately 800 acres of industrial development land and buildings from Stelco Inc. in Hamilton. The firm said it plans to develop up to 12 million square feet of new industrial on the lands." Slate "agreed to a long-term sale-leaseback of 75 acres of land and two million square feet of buildings for 35 years to Stelco", leaving "the remaining 725 acres". TPR Hamilton puts the parcel at 806.2 acres and about $643,000 per acre, and calls them "the most valuable vacant industrial lands on the Great Lakes". Canada's National Observer confirmed in June 2026 that Slate still owns the site. |
Private equity | CAD $518,000,000 2022-06-01 Announced 31 May 2022 and closed the following morning; approximately $643,000 per acre on the 806.2-acre figure. Vendor: Stelco Inc. A |
| Hamilton Works (cokemaking and steel finishing) Hamilton Harbour waterfront 75 acres and 2 million sq ft of buildings held under a 35-year leaseback |
Industrial | Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. operator and plant owner; the land is Slate Asset Management's and is leased back Cleveland-Cliffs' SEC Form 10-K for FY2024 lists "Hamilton Works (Coke)" in Ontario at 0.7 million net tons of annual coke capacity and "Hamilton Works" among its raw steel processing and finishing locations with hot-rolled, cold-rolled and coated capability, and states: "We own five active cokemaking facilities, three of which are located within our Burns Harbor, Lake Erie and Hamilton facilities." The 10-K does not state the land tenure; RENX establishes it, reporting Slate's 35-year sale-leaseback of 75 acres and 2 million sq ft of buildings to Stelco, which Cliffs has since acquired. The split between plant and ground is what a $37.10 parcel register would settle and nothing free will. |
Public company | —B |
| Lloyd D. Jackson Square 2 King St W, Hamilton L8P 1A1 nearly 400,000 sq ft of mall plus four office towers, spanning two blocks along King St W between James and Bay |
Mixed use | City of Hamilton (the land); the Real group of companies — a Yale Properties and Manulife Financial joint venture — holds the leasehold to 2070 Hamilton City Magazine, 20 January 2023: "The Real group, which holds a lease until 2070 on the city-owned property Jackson Square is built upon, has made investments in LED lighting and wayfinding elements"; the complex was "executed by the Real group of companies, a joint venture of Yale Properties and Manulife Financial that was formed to develop Jackson Square", and its managers act "with the blessing of owner Yale Properties". CHCH reported in 2014, when the city was considering selling the ground, that staff hoped "to negotiate with the mall's owner, Yale Properties", which "currently has 56 years left on its lease". No sale of the freehold was found. |
Government | —A |
| Lime Ridge Mall 999 Upper Wentworth St, Hamilton 793,000 sq ft on 65 acres (about 30% site coverage); $251M of annual sales, $841 per sq ft |
Retail | Primaris Real Estate Investment Trust 100% Primaris REIT's own news release of 16 June 2025: "it has agreed to acquire a 100% interest in Lime Ridge Mall ... in Hamilton, Ontario from an entity managed by Cadillac Fairview (the 'Vendor') for aggregate consideration of $416.0 million" — $235.0M cash, $81.0M of REIT units at the $21.40 NAV price and $100.0M of 6.00 per cent exchangeable preferred units; "Lime Ridge Mall is unencumbered" and closing was expected 17 June 2025. The release describes "a 793,000 square foot mall located on 65 acres of land, for an approximate 30% site coverage" producing "over $251 million in annual sales, $841 in sales per square foot", with 58.5 per cent long-term in-place occupancy. |
REIT | CAD $416,000,000 2025-06-17 $235.0M cash, $81.0M of REIT units at $21.40, and $100.0M of 6.00% exchangeable preferred LP units. Vendor: "an entity managed by Cadillac Fairview". Closing expected 17 June 2025. A |
| FirstOntario Centre, FirstOntario Concert Hall and the Hamilton Convention Centre 101 York Blvd / 1 Summers Lane / 1 Summers Lane, Hamilton |
Civic | City of Hamilton freehold; operations and maintenance transferred to Hamilton Urban Precinct Entertainment Group from 1 April 2022 for 30 guaranteed years, up to 49 CBC Hamilton, on the master agreement ratified by council: "The group — which includes Carmen's Group, LiUNA, dpai architects, Meridian Credit Union, Paletta International — takes over operations and maintenance of all three venues on April 1, 2022. There is no monetary contribution from the city, which also retains ownership of the lands and facilities." The city's real estate manager said "thirty years are guaranteed" of a contract that "could run for up to 49 years". Hamilton City Magazine later reported the finalised Oak View Group / HUPEG / City deal for a $280-million arena rebuild, called "the largest single private investment in an arena in Canada". |
Government | —A |
| Sir Isaac Brock Building 55 Bay Street North, Hamilton 26,977 m² (290,000 sq ft) on 0.74 hectares |
Office | Government of Canada (Public Services and Procurement Canada) The Directory of Federal Real Property records the Sir Isaac Brock Site, 55 Bay Street North, custodian Public Services and Procurement Canada, interest type "Crown Owned", primary use "Office": one building, 26,977 m² on 0.74 ha. It is the largest federal office building in Hamilton and the only substantial downtown building in this record whose owner is stated in an open dataset. PSPC owns three Hamilton properties outright (27,087 m² on 3.23 ha) and leases seven more, including 2,443 m² at 135 Hunter Street East and 1,375 m² at 700 Queenston Road. |
Government | —A |
| Hamilton Mechanized Processing Plant 393 Millen Rd, Hamilton L8E 5A8 31,640 m² (341,000 sq ft) on 7.30 hectares |
Industrial | Canada Post Corporation Directory of Federal Real Property: Canada Post Corporation, interest type "Crown Owned", primary use "Commercial Retail", one building of 31,640 m² on 7.30 ha — the largest federal building in Hamilton by floor area. Canada Post holds seven Hamilton properties Crown-owned (35,769 m² on 10.18 ha, including letter-carrier depots at 247 Pritchard Rd and Tradewinds & Sandhill Roads) and four leased. The entire federal footprint in Hamilton is 39 properties and 37.27 hectares, so the Crown is a rounding error here against Slate's 806 acres. |
Government | —A |
| Hamilton City Centre (formerly the Eaton Centre) 77 James St N, Hamilton |
Retail | Not established a paid title search would answer it The last element of Hamilton's 18-year downtown renewal programme, completed in 1990, and the clearest blank in this record. Hamilton City Magazine, January 2023: "The adjacent Hamilton City Centre, while admired for its airy, open architecture, never hit its stride and was permanently closed in December. Demolition will soon begin to make way for four residential towers." Search results attribute the property to a named Toronto developer, but no document naming the owner could be opened, and a search result is not a source that may carry an owner. Ontario's answer costs $37.10 for the parcel register, and that is the whole reason this line is blank. |
Not established | —A |
The core land
The most valuable ground in the city, and what the public record says about it.
Hamilton is where this section's argument about Ontario becomes concrete. The province's assessed values are not published, so they surface only when a company appeals them — and when Stelco appealed, the resulting tribunal ruling and the sale that followed weeks later were two numbers for the same ground that differ by a factor of six thousand. The rest of Hamilton's core is a city that owns the ground under its downtown mall and its three main entertainment venues but does not own the buildings, and a federal government that owns almost nothing at all.
Who builds the houses
New-home building in this market: the volume, and the firms behind it. Ownership of a builder matters as much as its volume — a private-equity platform and a family firm behave differently.
Hamilton's new homes come from the Golden Horseshoe's second- and third-generation family builders, and the Home Construction Regulatory Authority's Ontario Builder Directory is the only public count of them. It publishes each licensee's "Total Possessions" — freehold and condominium homes actually occupied by a buyer — and the figures below are read from its JSON API. The same two Ontario warnings apply everywhere: the counts are cumulative and province-wide rather than annual Hamilton starts, and builders incorporate a company per project, so the umbrella account is the only usable level — Branthaven had 13 of 42 licences active at the time of the query, DeSantis appears as two separate groups. The directory also cannot see purpose-built rental, which is not warranty-enrolled, which is why The Effort Trust Company and Vrancor, two of the largest residential landlords in the city, do not appear in it at all. For volume, the province's open data has Hamilton at 2,384 units of housing progress in 2024 against a 3,917 target.
| Name | Type | Total possessions (cumulative, Ontario) |
|---|---|---|
| Rosehaven Homes HCRA umbrella 12538680, 145 Reynolds Street, Oakville: 2,300 freehold + 1,370 condominium, zero chargeable conciliations and $5,817 in claims — the cleanest record of any large builder in this five-city batch. |
Private company | 3,670A |
| Losani Homes HCRA umbrella 11840355, 430 McNeilly Road, Stoney Creek: 2,676 freehold + 695 condominium, 25 chargeable conciliations and $426,811 in total claims. The largest Hamilton-headquartered builder in the directory. |
Family / private | 3,371A |
| New Horizon Homes HCRA umbrella 12260953, 3170 Harvester Road, Burlington: 472 freehold + 2,541 condominium, zero chargeable conciliations and no claims. Overwhelmingly condominium — the high-rise counterweight to Losani's subdivisions. |
Private company | 3,013A |
| Branthaven Homes HCRA umbrella 11374, 720 Oval Court, Burlington: 1,210 freehold + 1,674 condominium, 6 chargeable conciliations and $652,482 in total claims. |
Private company | 2,884A |
| Homes By DeSantis HCRA umbrella 1491, 13 Windward Drive, Grimsby: 211 freehold + 916 condominium, 4 chargeable conciliations. A separate licence, A. DeSantis Developments Ltd. of 8 Main Street East, Hamilton, licensed 5 May 1986, records a further 229 freehold + 113 condominium with zero conciliations — an illustration of why a single name can appear twice in this dataset. |
Family / private | 1,127A |
| Multi-Area Developments Inc. HCRA standalone licence, 301 Fruitland Road, Stoney Creek, licensed 1 December 1989: 922 freehold, 0 condominium, zero chargeable conciliations. |
Private company | 922A |
| Marz Homes HCRA umbrella 12040714, 825 North Service Road, Stoney Creek: 666 freehold + 33 condominium, zero chargeable conciliations and no claims. |
Family / private | 699A |
| Spallacci Group HCRA umbrella 3483, 1 James Street South, Hamilton: 137 freehold + 79 condominium, zero chargeable conciliations. Small by possessions, but one of the few builders in this set with a downtown Hamilton head office. |
Family / private | 216A |
| City of Hamilton — all builders Ontario's housing supply progress, January–December 2024: Hamilton recorded 2,384 units of housing progress against a 2024 target of 3,917 (60.86%, status "Not met"), and 10,196 since 2022 against a ten-year target of 47,000. The province counts housing starts, additional residential units, long-term-care beds, licensed congregate retirement suites and postsecondary student beds. |
Government | 2,384 in 2024A |
Commercial landlords
The commercial side, counted separately from housing: who holds the office, retail and industrial floor area.
Hamilton's commercial property divides into three blocks that barely touch: the harbour industrial land, now a single private-equity holding; the downtown, where the City owns the ground under the mall and the three big venues and private partners hold the leases; and the suburban retail, which a listed REIT bought from a pension-plan subsidiary in 2025. The city's largest apartment landlords are private and their websites would not open, so they are named in the gaps rather than counted here.
| Name | Type | Floor area / land / assets |
|---|---|---|
| Slate Asset Management Bought from Stelco Inc. for $518 million, closing 1 June 2022, with a 35-year sale-leaseback of 75 acres and 2 million sq ft of buildings to Stelco and about 725 acres for redevelopment as class-A industrial. Still the owner as of June 2026, when Canada's National Observer reported its data-centre proposal for part of the site and a 6,000-signature petition against it. The largest single private landholding in the city. |
Private equity | 806.2 acres on the harbour; up to 12M sq ft plannedA |
| Primaris Real Estate Investment Trust Primaris's own 16 June 2025 release: a 100 per cent interest in Lime Ridge Mall acquired from "an entity managed by Cadillac Fairview" for $416.0 million, unencumbered, closing 17 June 2025. $251 million of annual sales, $841 per square foot, 58.5 per cent long-term in-place occupancy. The REIT's whole portfolio was 15.0 million square feet. |
REIT | 793,000 sq ft on 65 acres (Lime Ridge Mall), 100%; 15.0M sq ft portfolioA |
| The Real group of companies (Yale Properties and Manulife Financial) Hamilton City Magazine, January 2023, and CHCH, 2014: the Real group — First, Second and Fourth Real Properties, a Yale Properties/Manulife Financial joint venture formed to develop Jackson Square — holds the leasehold on city-owned land until 2070, and Yale Properties is described as the mall's owner. In 2014 the City was considering selling the freehold; no sale was found. |
Private company | nearly 400,000 sq ft of mall plus four office towers, under a ground lease to 2070A |
| City of Hamilton CBC Hamilton: HUPEG "takes over operations and maintenance of all three venues on April 1, 2022. There is no monetary contribution from the city, which also retains ownership of the lands and facilities", under a master agreement guaranteed for 30 years and running up to 49. Hamilton City Magazine and CHCH establish the City as freeholder under Jackson Square. Hamilton is the one city in this batch where the municipality is a first-rank downtown landowner — and in both cases it owns ground it does not control. |
Government | the ground under Jackson Square, plus FirstOntario Centre, FirstOntario Concert Hall and the Hamilton Convention CentreA |
| Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. Cleveland-Cliffs' SEC Form 10-K for FY2024 lists Hamilton Works among its Ontario facilities and states the company owns five active cokemaking facilities, three of them inside its Burns Harbor, Lake Erie and Hamilton plants. The ground under the plant is Slate's, leased back for 35 years from 2022. |
Public company | 0.7M net tons of annual coke capacity plus hot-rolled, cold-rolled and coated finishing at Hamilton WorksA |
| Vrancor Group Vrancor's own site, read 3 October 2026, from 366 King St West, Hamilton: "With over 22 properties across Ontario, we partner with the world's top brands including Marriott, Hilton, InterContinental, Best Western and Accor", plus "multiple modern residential complexes in the Hamilton area" and a construction arm, DV Trillium Group. Winner of the 2025 IHG Owner/Operator Excellence Award and 2023 Hilton Multi-Brand Developer of the Year. Owner's own claims; no Hamilton-only count or floor area is published. |
Private company | over 22 hospitality properties across Ontario, plus Hamilton residential and commercialA |
| Canada Post Corporation Directory of Federal Real Property: seven Crown-owned Canada Post properties in Hamilton, the largest being the 31,640 m² Mechanized Processing Plant at 393 Millen Rd on 7.30 ha. Canada Post is the largest federal building owner in a city where the federal footprint totals 37.27 hectares. |
Government | 35,769 m² Crown-owned on 10.18 ha, plus 4 leasesA |
Looked for and not found
Claims this page would have made if a source could be opened. They are left out rather than guessed.
- The owner of Hamilton City Centre, closed in December 2022 with demolition planned for four residential towers. Search results attribute it to a named Toronto developer; no document naming the owner could be opened, so nothing is claimed.
- The registered owner of Landmark Place, Hamilton's tallest building, and of the downtown office towers that are not part of the Jackson Square leasehold. No free document naming any of them was opened.
- ArcelorMittal Dofasco, Hamilton's other integrated steel site and one of its largest landholders. Both canada.arcelormittal.com and corporate.arcelormittal.com return a 403 "you have been blocked" body, and no ArcelorMittal filing was opened that itemised the Hamilton site, so it carries no entry.
- The scale of The Effort Trust Company, among the largest apartment owners in Hamilton. efforttrust.ca would not resolve at any path tried and efforttrust.com does not exist; no unit count from any source was obtained.
- Whether the City of Hamilton ever sold the freehold under Jackson Square. CHCH reported in September 2014 that staff were seeking permission to negotiate a sale with Yale Properties, which had 56 years left on its lease and wanted 50 more. Hamilton City Magazine still described the land as city-owned in January 2023. No later decision was found.
- The current ownership chain of Stelco Inc. Cleveland-Cliffs' FY2024 10-K lists Hamilton Works as a Cliffs facility, and search results report Cliffs completed its acquisition of Stelco Holdings on 1 November 2024, but no filing stating that completion date was opened here, so the acquisition is described only as having happened.
- Any assessed value for any Hamilton parcel other than the Stelco lands. The Stelco figures reach this record through a tribunal decision reported by TPR Hamilton; MPAC publishes no roll, its lookup is CAPTCHA-gated, and Hamilton's own open-data portal returns 403 to a script.
- Any per-sale price with an address anywhere in Ontario. Consideration appears on the registered transfer instrument only, per parcel, at the fees in s2 — which is why this record carries exactly three Hamilton transaction prices ($518M in 2022, $416M in 2025, and the historic per-acre comparisons TPR assembled).
- The City of Hamilton's own total taxable assessment and its city-owned property inventory. hamilton.ca's budget pages 404 and open.hamilton.ca's search API returns 403.
- Whether any sitting member of Hamilton City Council holds property relevant to a council decision. No conflict-of-interest registry was reachable, nothing was established and nothing is claimed.
Sources
- Land Registry — "the official records of property ownership", 7.4 million parcels, self-search for a fee — ServiceOntario · openA
- Bulletin No. 2026-04 — Land Services Fee Changes effective November 2, 2026 (Schedules I–III) — Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery and Procurement, ServiceOntario, Land Registry Services Branch · openA
- Directory of Federal Real Property — full XML dataset (custodian, interest type, land area, floor area and building count per parcel) — Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, Office of the Comptroller General · openA
- Population and dwelling counts: census subdivisions — land area in square kilometres, 2021 — Statistics Canada, table 98-10-0002-01 · openA
- The Assessment Cycle — 2026 taxes still based on 1 January 2016 values — Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC) · openA
- Stelco Lands Sell for $630,000 an Acre, Only Weeks After An Ontario Tribunal Valued It at $52,431 Per Acre (corrected version: $643,000 per acre) — The Public Record Hamilton (Joey Coleman) · openA
- Slate plans up to 12M sq. ft. of industrial on Hamilton Stelco land — Real Estate News Exchange (RENX, Don Wilcox) · openA
- Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2024 — steelmaking and finishing facilities, cokemaking capacity (Hamilton Works, Ontario) — Cleveland-Cliffs Inc., filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission · openA
- Love it or hate it, Jackson Square matters (the lease to 2070 on city-owned land; the Real group as a Yale Properties/Manulife joint venture; Hamilton City Centre's closure) — Hamilton City Magazine (Meredith MacLeod) · openA
- Primaris REIT Announces $416 Million Acquisition of Lime Ridge Mall and Concurrent Secondary Offering of REIT Units — Primaris Real Estate Investment Trust (TSX: PMZ.UN) · openA
- City hands over operation of 3 key downtown entertainment facilities for up to 49 years — CBC News Hamilton · openA
- About / portfolio — "over 22 properties across Ontario" — Vrancor Group · openA
- Ontario Builder Directory — builder and umbrella summaries (/api/builders, /api/buildersummary, /api/umbrellaSummary) — Home Construction Regulatory Authority (HCRA) · openA
- Ontario's housing supply: January – December 2024 (ten-year target, annual target, progress, status by municipality) — Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Ontario Data Catalogue · openA
- Data centre proposal on former steelmaking site sparks public backlash in Hamilton (Slate still the owner, June 2026) — Canada's National Observer (Cloe Logan) · openA
- Hamilton looking to sell land under Jackson Square (Yale Properties as owner; 56 years left on the lease; nearly 400,000 sq ft) — CHCH News (Michael Miles) · openA
- Deal signed for $280 million revamp of downtown arena (Oak View Group, HUPEG and the City of Hamilton) — Hamilton City Magazine · openA