Crown Realty Partners has acquired a 108,000-square-foot office building in Mississauga, Ont., near Toronto Pearson International Airport.

Toronto-based Crown announced Wednesday that it has purchased the building at 5750 Explorer Drive within the Mississauga Airport Corporate Centre in an off-market transaction. The purchase was made through Crown’s fifth value-add fund, CR V LP, as part of the firm’s strategy to acquire top-tier properties in high-growth areas.

The seller and financial terms were not disclosed.

The 17-year-old building is anchored by the Canadian subsidiary of famed U.S.-based chocolate company Hershey, which occupies about 22,000 sf on the top floor.

“It’s a high-profile, five-storey office building in Mississauga that sits right on the 401 [freeway], with 400,000-plus cars per day that drive by,” said Scott Watson, Crown’s head of acquisitions and leasing, in an interview.

“It’s got amazing signage opportunities. We own a few assets nearby, so it fits in nicely in our portfolio. We now have over 2 million square feet in Mississauga. We like the marketplace and and we like what we’ve seen over the past 12 months, and then the dynamics and the shift of people coming back to work [in offices rather than remotely.] So when we got a chance to acquire this building, we managed to meet terms of the vendor and get things settled off.”

The LEED Silver-certified property aligns with Crown’s commitment to sustainable building practices and is 78% leased. Other prominent tenants include Skygrid Construction and Bank of Montreal.

“There’s some pretty good, committed lease term at the building between everybody,” said Watson. “There’s a couple vacant spaces, which we plan to model-suite and accelerate leasing to back-fill the balance of it.”

Crown plans to enhance the property with upgrades to the main lobby and common areas, creating a more welcoming space for tenants and visitors. Other upgrades include LED lighting to help reduce energy costs and the building’s energy consumption. Common areas on the upper floors will also be enhanced.

The company anticipates that the additional energy-efficient retrofits and the model-suite program will further elevate the property’s appeal to attract top-tier tenants.

“The [previous] owners have done a great job,” said Watson. “They just redid some of the parking lots. The landscaping looks great from the exterior, and the property shows well. We just want to tweak it a little bit.”

This acquisition marks Crown’s sixth on behalf of the CR V LP fund, which has raised $260 million in capital from institutional investors and continues to pursue opportunities aligned with Crown’s value-add investment strategy. Watson said Crown has approximately $100 million left in the fund to invest and is looking at potential acquisitions across the Greater Toronto Area.

“We’re working to find suitable investments which meet the criteria for value-add office,” he said. “The airport’s a target. But again, it’s across the GTA which we’re looking right now.”

Crown owns two other complexes, and manages a third, in the Mississauga Airport Corporate Centre.

The new acquisition is Crown’s second and final office purchase of 2024, said Watson. The firm acquired the 160,178-sf two-building Sheridan Exchange complex in Mississauga for $25.6 million from Slate Office REIT and New York-based Wafra in January.

Crown is an integrated commercial real estate investment and management firm. The company manages about 10 million sf of predominantly office assets across Canada, specializing in value-add opportunities and providing top-tier workplaces for tenants.

Watson does not know when Crown will complete its CR V LP fund investment program.

“We’re active in the market today,” he said.