Armco Capital has completed its acquisition of the 40-storey Stephen Avenue Place office tower in downtown Calgary through a court-ordered sale process,

The proposed deal includes two adjacent retail properties, known as the Kraft and Venator buildings.

The proposed purchase price was redacted from court documents filed by insolvency specialist MNP, the court-appointed monitor in the receivership case. The office and retail components were listed for $60 million and $5.6 million, respectively.

Avison Young co-ordinated the marketing efforts and negotiated the proposed sale on behalf of MNP and the court.

The sale culminated a lengthy legal process that began in October 2023 after Timbercreek Financial placed the renovated Stephen Avenue Place under receivership.

The property was owned by affiliates of Slate Canadian Real Estate Opportunity Fund LP, which is controlled by Toronto-based Slate Asset Management. The management company previously owned a stake in the former Slate Office REIT and served as external asset manager.

Halifax-based Armco is led by George Armoyan, whose family owns the firm. He also heads family-owned firm G2S2 Capital, which is also based in the Nova Scotia capital. He is believed to hold a majority stake in the former Slate Office REIT through G2S2, which is Armco’s parent.

Armoyan spearheaded a boardroom battle over the REIT’s heavy debt, leading to the termination of Slate Asset Management’s contract under whereby it served as the REIT’s external asset manager. Brothers Blair and Brady Welch, who head SAM, subsequently resigned from the REIT’s board, which internalized the management of the assets.

Armoyan later led a rebranding of the entity as Ravelin Properties REIT and provided additional capital to keep the business going before resigning from the board. Ravelin is now being sold to Clarke in a proposed $1.1-billion deal.

The Alberta Court of King’s Bench previously approved Timbercreek’s request to put Stephen Avenue Place in receivership as the company seeks to recover missed payments on a $139-million mortgage balance.

That amount reflects the full value of the first-ranking mortgage, which is syndicated on a pari-passu basis among Timbercreek, which holds the mortgage through an affiliate, and two other institutional syndication partners. Timbercreek’s gross exposure, after accounting for syndicated portions, was $15 million, or 10.8% of the total loan, representing 1.3% of its net mortgage portfolio of $1.1 billion.

MNP was first appointed receiver of Stephen Avenue Place on October 5, 2023, but was discharged after the debtors reached a forbearance and loan-amendment agreement with their lenders in late 2023. Following a court-approved transition, control of the property returned to the debtors in January 2024. However, subsequent defaults under the forbearance agreement resulted in MNP being reappointed as receiver in October 2025.

The debt is classified as a stage 3 mortgage within the company’s consolidated financial statements. Timbercreek previously said it sought the court’s appointment of MNP as the property’s receiver and manager “as the next step in the path to realization.”

“While we do not typically comment on individual loans, we felt it was important to disclose our net exposure in this situation,” Blair Tamblyn, CEO of Timbercreek, said previously “Our team has originated more than $18 billion in commercial real estate debt since launching our lending platform in 2007 and actively managed a sizable portfolio through multiple cycles.

“We are experienced in navigating these kinds of situations to preserve our investors’ capital, and that is our primary focus with this asset.”

The Kraft and Venator buildings are owned by Slate Asset Management. They are connected to Stephen Avenue Place via Calgary’s Plus 15 skywalk network. The retail buildings’ strong-covenant tenants include Dollarama and McDonald’s.

Armoyan has acquired a number of other downtown Calgary office assets, including some that contain retail components, in recent years through G2S2 and Armco. The company is seeking to capitalize on the hard-hit local office sector’s recovery from prolonged double-digit vacancy resulting from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, a downturn in the global oil and gas industry and economic pressures that were exacerbated by a glut of new trophy-class supply placed development pipeline before the troubles began.

Avison Young’s marketing team included Walsh Mannas, Kevin Morgans, Ryan Swelin and Nathan Drury, who are all based in Calgary.

Based in Toronto, Timbercreek is a leading non-bank commercial real estate lender that provides shorter-duration, structured financing solutions to the industry.

Pictured: Stephen Avenue Place office tower in downtown Calgary.