Medicine Hat, Alberta
The city that owns its own gas field cannot tell you who owns the house next door: Medicine Hat receives every change of title electronically from Alberta Land Titles because SPIN2 gives municipalities the owner name it withholds from everyone else, and publishes 40 open datasets, not one of which is the assessment roll.
7 buildings · 4 with an owner established · 10 sources · 2 tier B · 5 tier A · prepared 2026-10-03
Alberta sells ownership one certificate at a time. SPIN2's public product catalogue prices a Current Certificate of Title at $10.00 and states that an online view costs the same as a download; its volume products — $150.00 plus two cents a title for Front of Title, $300.00 plus four cents for Front and Back — expressly "do not contain owner name (due to new privacy policy)". The catalogue also draws the line that matters here: access to the owner-name field "only applies to Registry Agents, Internal LTO and Government Staff, SPIN 2 System Administrators and Municipalities - No Others". Medicine Hat is on the inside of that line and says so: "The City's source of property ownership and mailing address information for assessment notices and tax notices is the Certificate of Title as registered with the Province of Alberta Land Titles Office", and "Changes made to your land title are received electronically by the City of Medicine Hat from the Province of Alberta Land Titles Office." The city publishes none of it. Its open data portal carries 40 datasets — water mains, park benches, sanitary manholes, parking meters, elevation contours — and no parcel, assessment or permit file at all, so unlike Calgary, Edmonton or Lethbridge there is no open value side either. What the City does publish, annually and in detail, is itself: a list of its largest corporate taxpayers, its tax rates to four decimal places, and the accounts of the municipal gas, electricity, land and petroleum businesses it runs. From December 2026 titles move to the Alberta Registry for Land Online (ARLO) and SPIN2 retires.
- alta.registries.gov.ab.ca — “"The user agrees to the terms and conditions set out in the Copyright and Disclaimer statement." The product catalogue adds that owner-name access "only applies to Registry Agents, Internal LTO and Government Staff, SPIN 2 System Administrators and Municipalities - No Others."”
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Medicine Hat Mall 3292 Dunmore Road SE 539,000 sq ft |
Retail | Primaris Real Estate Investment Trust Primaris's own leasing table lists "Medicine Hat Mall | Medicine Hat | AB" among its 26 centres, and its stored fact sheet states "Well established regional enclosed shopping centre", approximate GLA 539,000 square feet, 93 stores, 2,838 parking stalls, at 3292 Dunmore Road SE "adjacent to and convenient access from TransCanada Highway". The City's own 2025 Annual Report lists "Medicine Hat Mall Inc" first among the Largest Corporate Tax Payers in Medicine Hat. The fact sheet's trade area is 125,035 people — nearly double the city's population — reaching from Brooks to Swift Current and into Montana. |
REIT | —B |
| Medicine Hat Nitrogen Complex Medicine Hat, Alberta |
Industrial | CF Industries Holdings, Inc. CF's 2025 Form 10-K, filed 25 February 2026, lists among its principal assets "two Canadian manufacturing facilities, located in Medicine Hat, Alberta (the largest ammonia production complex in Canada) and Courtright, Ontario", and adds: "It has two ammonia plants and one urea plant. The complex has on-site storage for 55,000 tons of ammonia and 55,000 tons of granular urea." Capacity at 31 December 2025 is 1,230 thousand tons gross ammonia, 770 net, 810 of granular urea. Unlike five of CF's six US plants, which sit in the 89%-owned CF Industries Nitrogen, LLC, the Canadian facilities are held directly. The City's own largest-taxpayer list does not include CF. |
Public company | —A |
| Medicine Hat natural gas and petroleum field city-owned wells in and around Medicine Hat |
Land | City of Medicine Hat Medicine Hat is the only city in this section that is itself an oil and gas producer. Its 2025 Annual Report states the City "operates enterprise business units" covering "land and property development" and "integrated commodity related businesses including natural gas exploration, production and procurement as well as electric generation". The accelerated abandonment programme is budgeted at $125 million — $45 million from working capital and reserves, $80 million of debentures — and by end-2025 was "substantially complete with almost 2,100 wells fully abandoned and under reclamation", with "56 of the most challenging wells remaining" and two oil wells still in service. |
Government | —A |
| Saamis Solar Park Medicine Hat, Alberta |
Land | City of Medicine Hat The City's 2025 Annual Report records that it "Received approval from the Alberta Utilities Commission to acquire the Saamis Solar Park project, giving Medicine Hat the option to build new solar generation capacity", and that "In early 2026, City Council approved a $131.5 million budget to move forward with the 75 MW phase, contingent on securing a power purchase agreement with a committed customer before breaking ground." In the same year the City assigned its Clear Horizon Carbon Sequestration Evaluation Agreement to Imperial Oil Limited, having taken the rights itself "to ensure a hub was considered for the region". |
Government | —A |
| Medicine Hat Regional Hospital Medicine Hat, Alberta |
Institutional | Not established a paid title search would answer it Named by the City's 2025 Annual Report as the largest public employer in Medicine Hat, ahead of the City itself, the school district, Medicine Hat College and the Province. With no open assessment roll and no open parcel layer, the hospital carries neither a published value nor a published owner in any Medicine Hat source; the registered owner is on a certificate of title. |
Not established | —A |
| Cancarb Limited plant Medicine Hat, Alberta |
Industrial | Not established a paid title search would answer it Cancarb Limited appears on the City's own list of largest corporate taxpayers in Medicine Hat, between Avenue Living and Chinook Village Housing Society. The City publishes the list unranked and without amounts, and publishes no assessment roll, so the holding is established as a taxpaying presence in the city and nothing more; who holds the title is not in any open source. |
Not established | —A |
| Co-op Place Medicine Hat, Alberta |
Institutional | Not established a paid title search would answer it The City's arena, listed under Parks & Recreation on its own site alongside the Big Marble Go Centre and the Crestwood Rec Centre. The City's 2025 consolidated statement of financial position puts its net tangible capital assets at $1,509,289 thousand against $1,444,919 thousand in 2024, and accumulated surplus at $1,741,442 thousand — the scale of municipal property here, but not attributed building by building. |
Not established | —B |
The core land
The most valuable ground in the city, and what the public record says about it.
Without an open roll, the only consistent measure of the most valuable ground in Medicine Hat is the province's equalized assessment, which is published per municipality under an open licence. What it shows is a city whose non-residential base is small but whose regulated machinery-and-equipment base — $592.5 million — is 116 times Airdrie's, on a population three-quarters the size. That is the gas field, the nitrogen complex and the carbon-black plant showing up in the tax base.
Who owns the town
At this scale the significant owner is rarely a trust or a fund: it is one or two local holding companies, a family in its second or third generation, and often the land around the town rather than the buildings in it.
The largest landowner in Medicine Hat is Medicine Hat. The City runs the gas and electric utilities, the land and property development business and, until very recently, a 2,100-well natural gas field — an arrangement no other city in this section has. It is now unwinding the resource half of that at a budgeted cost of $125 million while buying a 75 MW solar project, so the City's land position is actively changing from mineral to generation. Against that, the federal footprint inside the city is 2.2 hectares and only 0.14 of them Crown-owned, and the private holders are known only as ten names on a list the City publishes once a year.
| Name | Type | Holdings |
|---|---|---|
| City of Medicine Hat The City's enterprise business units cover water, sewer and solid waste; "land and property development"; "integrated commodity related businesses including natural gas exploration, production and procurement as well as electric generation"; and gas and electric distribution. The 2025 Annual Report records the accelerated abandonment programme as substantially complete at almost 2,100 wells, 107 reclamation certificates received in 2025, 56 of the most challenging wells left, and surface lease payments eliminated at the reclaimed sites. Natural gas averaged $1.61/GJ in 2025 with a record low of $0.33/GJ in September; Alberta pool power ended 2025 at $43.68/MWh, $19.06 down on 2024. Total accumulated surplus $1,741,442 thousand; 1,264.7 budgeted full-time equivalents, 186.9 of them in Energy, Land & Environment. |
Government | $1,509,289,000 of net tangible capital assets; almost 2,100 wells abandoned, 56 remaining, 2 oil wells in serviceA |
| CF Industries Holdings, Inc. The largest ammonia production complex in Canada, per CF's own 2025 Form 10-K, with on-site storage for 55,000 tons of ammonia and 55,000 tons of granular urea. Held directly rather than through the 89%-owned CF Industries Nitrogen, LLC that holds five of its six US plants. Its 810 thousand tons of granular urea capacity is one of only three CF sites producing it. |
Public company | Two ammonia plants and one urea plant; 1,230 thousand tons of gross ammonia capacityA |
| Government of Canada (all custodians) The smallest federal footprint of any of the five cities except Canmore. The only Crown-owned parcel is Canada Post's Letter Carrier Depot at 420 Kipling Street SE, 0.14 ha and 1,483 m2. Everything else is a tenancy: National Defence's Patterson Armoury (2.07 ha, 3,530 m2, held under lease or licence), the RCMP at 884 2 Street SE, Farm Credit Canada at Box Springs Close, two PSPC offices including Northside Centre at 78 8 Street NW, and an Environment and Climate Change Canada hydrometric station on the South Saskatchewan River. |
Government | 8 parcels, 2.2 ha, 6,391 m2 of floor area — 0.14 ha Crown-ownedA |
| Imperial Oil Limited The City's 2025 Annual Report records that it "Assigned the Clear Horizon Carbon Sequestration Evaluation Agreement to Imperial Oil Limited", having secured the rights itself so that a carbon capture hub "was considered for the region", and that it received approval from the Government of Alberta. The subsurface rights are the asset here, not the surface — which is the unusual shape of property in southeastern Alberta. |
Public company | Assignee of the Clear Horizon Carbon Sequestration Evaluation AgreementA |
| The ten named corporate ratepayers, collectively The City's 2025 Annual Report lists, in its own order: Medicine Hat Mall Inc; The Meadowlands Development Corporation; Skyline Retail Real Estate Holdings Inc; South Country Co-op Limited; Canadian Tire Properties; Avenue Living (2014) GP Ltd; Cancarb Limited; Chinook Village Housing Society; Wal-Mart Canada Corp; Royop (Southlands) Development Ltd. It is a list of names only — no tax amounts, no addresses, no areas — and it is the entire private-ownership record that Medicine Hat publishes for free. |
Private company | 10 entities, unranked and without amountsA |
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.
Medicine Hat builds the fewest homes of any city in this batch and swung hardest: 77 housing starts in 2023, 193 in 2024, 317 in 2025 — of which 221 apartment, 76 single-detached, 16 semi-detached and 4 row. Apartments were 70% of 2025 starts in a city whose housing stock is 29,568 dwellings. The City's own count differs from the province's: the Annual Report records 574 building permits issued in 2025 with an estimated construction value of $152 million, while the Alberta Regional Dashboard records 524 permits worth $78,296 thousand — different bases, both published, and worth stating as such rather than reconciled. No builder league table exists: the City's open data portal has no permit dataset and no Alberta body ranks builders. What the City does publish is the demand side of landlordship, and it names the owners.
| Name | Type | Stated presence |
|---|---|---|
| Avenue Living (2014) GP Ltd The City of Medicine Hat's 2025 Annual Report lists Avenue Living (2014) GP Ltd among the Largest Corporate Tax Payers in Medicine Hat — the only multi-family residential platform on the list, in a year when apartments were 70% of the city's housing starts. The list is published unranked and without amounts. |
Private equity | Named among the city's largest corporate taxpayersA |
| Chinook Village Housing Society A housing society on a list otherwise made of malls, retail chains and industry — a reminder that in a city of 68,714 people the seniors' and non-market housing stock is large enough to rank among the biggest ratepayers. |
Institution | Named among the city's largest corporate taxpayersA |
| The Meadowlands Development Corporation Listed immediately after Medicine Hat Mall Inc on the City's own 2025 list. The City publishes the list unranked, so its position is not a ranking, and no document we opened states its holdings or units. |
Private company | Named second on the city's largest corporate taxpayer listA |
Commercial landlords
The commercial side, counted separately from housing: who holds the office, retail and industrial floor area.
Medicine Hat is the one city here where the City itself publishes a list of who pays the most — ten named corporations, unranked and without amounts, in its audited annual report. Two of them are national REITs, one is the regional co-operative, two are national retail chains, one is a multi-family private-equity platform and one is a carbon-black manufacturer. It is the closest thing to an ownership register that any of these five Alberta cities offers for free.
| Name | Type | Named by the City as a largest corporate taxpayer |
|---|---|---|
| Medicine Hat Mall Inc First-named on the City's 2025 list. Primaris REIT's own leasing table and fact sheet identify Medicine Hat Mall, 3292 Dunmore Road SE, as a Primaris property with that GLA and a CRU productivity of $467 (January 2023). "Medicine Hat Mall Inc" is the entity the City's tax roll carries. |
REIT | 539,000 sq ft GLA, 93 stores, 2,838 stallsB |
| Skyline Retail Real Estate Holdings Inc The second REIT entity on the City's list. No document we opened states which Medicine Hat properties it holds or their area, so none is given. |
REIT | Named among the city's largest corporate taxpayersA |
| South Country Co-op Limited The City's 2025 Annual Report lists South Country Co-op in both tables — largest corporate taxpayers, and "South Country Co-op (all locations)" at the head of the private employers list ahead of The Real Canadian Superstore, Canadian Pacific Kansas City, Wal-Mart and Goodyear. A member-owned retail co-operative as a city's biggest private employer and one of its biggest ratepayers is a distinctly southern-Alberta ownership structure. |
Institution | Named both as a largest corporate taxpayer and as the largest private employer in the cityA |
| Canadian Tire Properties Canadian Tire's property-holding arm on the City's list, alongside Wal-Mart Canada Corp and Royop (Southlands) Development Ltd. Three of the ten largest ratepayers in Medicine Hat are big-box retail or its landlords. |
Public company | Named among the city's largest corporate taxpayersA |
| Royop (Southlands) Development Ltd A retail development entity named for the Southlands area of the city. The City publishes the name and nothing else; no area, value or asset list is in any open source. |
Developer | Named among the city's largest corporate taxpayersA |
Looked for and not found
Claims this page would have made if a source could be opened. They are left out rather than guessed.
- Any parcel-level value in Medicine Hat. The City's open data portal publishes 40 datasets — water mains, sanitary manholes, park benches, parking meters, elevation contours — and no parcel, assessment or permit layer. Unlike Calgary, Edmonton and Lethbridge, there is no open value side here at all, so no highest-assessed parcel can be stated.
- Which properties Skyline Retail Real Estate Holdings Inc, The Meadowlands Development Corporation, Avenue Living (2014) GP Ltd, Canadian Tire Properties or Royop (Southlands) Development Ltd hold in Medicine Hat, and how much tax any of the ten named ratepayers pays. The City publishes names in no stated order and no amounts.
- Whether the CF Industries Medicine Hat Nitrogen Complex lies inside the City of Medicine Hat or in Cypress County. CF's 10-K gives only "Medicine Hat, Alberta" and "southeast Alberta", and the City's own largest-taxpayer list does not include CF — consistent with assessment as designated industrial or linear property, but not proof of location either way.
- Cancarb Limited's corporate parent. The City names the Medicine Hat entity; no filing we opened states who owns it.
- The discrepancy between the City's own 2025 permit count (574 permits, $152 million of estimated construction value) and the Alberta Regional Dashboard's (524 permits, $78,296 thousand). Both are published; the bases differ and neither page explains the difference.
- ARLO's fee schedule, and therefore the price of an Alberta title once SPIN2 retires in December 2026.
- No sale-price dataset exists for Medicine Hat or anywhere in Alberta below a per-parcel title purchase.
Sources
- Assessment & Property Taxes, including 2026 tax rates (Bylaw 4878-2026) — City of Medicine Hat · openA
- City of Medicine Hat Annual Report 2025 — City of Medicine Hat · openA
- SPIN 2 Fee Schedule and Product Catalogue — Service Alberta, Government of Alberta · openA
- Tariff of Fees Regulation, AR 120/2000 (Land Titles Act), current as of October 1, 2026 — Alberta King's Printer · openA
- Leasing portfolio table and Medicine Hat Mall fact sheet (February 2023) — Primaris REIT / Primaris Management Inc. · openA
- CF Industries Holdings, Inc. Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025 — U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission / EDGAR · openA
- Directory of Federal Real Property, full dataset — Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat · openA
- Property assessments by municipality (Total Equalized Assessment), 2026, and Housing Starts / Building Permits / Population — Alberta Municipal Affairs / Alberta Regional Dashboard · openA
- City of Medicine Hat Open Data (dataset catalogue, 40 datasets) — City of Medicine Hat · openA
- Modernizing Land Titles — December 2026 transition to ARLO — Government of Alberta · openA