One Properties Paramount: an empty theatre on Jasper Avenue

A receivership over a shopping centre is about tenants. A receivership over an office tower is about leases. This one is about four addresses on Edmonton's main street where almost nobody is paying anything.

What the estate is

One Properties Paramount GP Inc., general partner of One Properties Paramount Limited Partnership, is the registered owner of five parcels of land known together as the Paramount Lands, at 10233, 10247, 10275 and 10279 Jasper Avenue NW, Edmonton, per Receiver's First Report to Court, June 29, 2026, paras. 6–8.

Three buildings stand on them, and the report's inventory of what is inside them is short:

• a vacant theatre, previously operated as the Paramount Theater On Jasper;
• a one-storey building containing three vacant retail units; and
• premises occupied by a single tenant, Canna Cabana, under an expired lease

per Receiver's First Report to Court, June 29, 2026, paras. 9 and following.

One cannabis store holding over on a lease that has run out, and everything else dark.

The Court of King's Bench of Alberta, judicial centre Edmonton, appointed the Receiver over all of the partnership's property on September 24, 2025, per Receivership Order, September 24, 2025.

The debt, and the security behind it

National Bank of Canada registered a general security agreement at the Personal Property Registry on November 14, 2018, and a first-in-time mortgage against the titles on January 8, 2019. The Receiver obtained an opinion from independent counsel confirming that security to be valid and enforceable, subject to the usual assumptions and qualifications, per Receiver's First Report to Court, June 29, 2026, paras. 45–47.

As at July 31, 2025 — before the appointment — the amount owing to National Bank was $9,086,012, with interest and costs continuing to accrue, per Receiver's First Report to Court, June 29, 2026, para. 18.

What it costs to hold an empty building

The Receiver attended the Paramount Lands on the day of its appointment to take possession and secure the buildings. Its list of activities since is the least glamorous document in insolvency practice and the most revealing, because every line is a bill on a property earning almost nothing, per Receiver's First Report to Court, June 29, 2026, paras. 19–20:

Insurance confirmed and renewed. Every utility and service account transferred into the Receiver's name. Snow removal, garbage and janitorial contractors kept on. Contractors engaged for regular security and insurance checks. Annual fire alarm and prevention testing arranged. HVAC and electrical repairs. Maintenance requests from the one remaining tenant, answered.

And, in the middle of that list: "various correspondence with City of Edmonton regarding property security, graffiti and loitering."

That single item is what a vacant landmark on a commercial high street generates. The municipality writes to the receiver about the state of the frontage; the receiver hires people to check on it; the meter runs.

The interim statement of receipts and disbursements puts a figure on the nine months. From September 24, 2025 to June 17, 2026, receipts totalled $325,887 and disbursements $172,617, leaving $153,271 in the Receiver's trust account, per Receiver's First Report to Court, June 29, 2026, paras. 43–44.

Something over half of everything collected went straight back out to keep the buildings standing, insured and watched.

Marketing without a price

The Receivership Order authorises the Receiver to market the assets but does not prescribe a process — so the Receiver built one, per Receiver's First Report to Court, June 29, 2026, paras. 24–25.

It issued a request for proposals to five licensed commercial brokerages active in the Edmonton market, toured the property with brokers, reviewed the proposals in detail, and engaged Jones Lang LaSalle Real Estate Services, Inc. to list and market the lands on an as-is, where-is basis. JLL's proposal included a commission of 3.00% of the gross sale price with an additional 1.00%, and a tailored marketing plan — email and telephone campaigns, a dedicated webpage and data room, social media and 360-degree imagery, per Receiver's First Report to Court, June 29, 2026, paras. 20(xii), 20(xix), 26–27.

Marketing launched on or around January 12, 2026, offered to the market as-is where-is and on an unpriced basis — no asking price, the market invited to say what the assembly is worth. 'For Sale' signage went up at the property, the listing went online with an email campaign behind it, and a virtual data room opened for diligence. JLL reached out to active developers in Edmonton, Calgary and beyond, per Receiver's First Report to Court, June 29, 2026, paras. 29–35.

The measure of interest the report gives is a web statistic: 777 views of the online listing page, per Receiver's First Report to Court, June 29, 2026, para. 32.

Selling unpriced is the honest choice for an assembly like this one. Four contiguous addresses on Jasper Avenue with a dead cinema on them are worth whatever a developer thinks can be built there, and a receiver naming a number first would only be guessing at somebody else's pro forma.

The offer

The application seeks approval of an offer from Gather Co Inc. and/or its Nominee and of the purchase and sale agreement behind it, per Receiver's First Report to Court, June 29, 2026, para. 3 and Application, June 29, 2026.

The price is not in the public documents read for this piece; the sale and marketing proposals and the commercial terms sit in confidential appendices, which is the ordinary treatment while a transaction is being approved.

What is on the open record is the Receiver's reasoning for recommending it, per Receiver's First Report to Court, June 29, 2026, paras. 40–42:

1. the lands were exposed to a wide market through six months of JLL's marketing; 2. the agreement is the best offer received; 3. the agreement is unconditional; 4. the sale is as-is, where-is; 5. a deposit has been received; and 6. it produces a timely disposition, which benefits the estate given ongoing carrying costs.

National Bank, the primary secured creditor, supports acceptance.

Point six is the one that connects to the receipts. Every month of further marketing is another month of insurance, security patrols, snow, and correspondence about graffiti. An unconditional offer in hand is worth more to this estate than a better one that might arrive in the autumn.

Who gets paid before the bank

The Receiver identifies three claims ranking ahead of National Bank in the sale proceeds, per Receiver's First Report to Court, June 29, 2026, para. 48:

• the fees of the Receiver and its counsel, under the Receiver's charge in the Receivership Order;
• $100,000 of principal borrowed by the Receiver, plus interest, under its borrowing charge; and
• $254,651 of unpaid property taxes owing to the City of Edmonton for 2025 and 2026, projected as at June 30, 2026, all of which will be paid from the sale proceeds on closing.

There is a symmetry there worth noticing. The city that was writing to the receiver about loitering and graffiti at the property is also the creditor sitting ahead of a chartered bank for a quarter of a million dollars of taxes on it. Municipal tax arrears are the quiet first charge on every distressed building, and they accrue whether or not anybody is inside.

Two categories that usually complicate a distribution are absent here. The company had no employees at the date of the receivership, so nothing is owed for wages, vacation or severance and no Wage Earner Protection Program or source-deduction priority is expected. And the CRA, notified of the receivership and in correspondence about the GST accounts, is not expected to file a priority claim, per Receiver's First Report to Court, June 29, 2026, paras. 49–50.

A partnership that owned four addresses and employed nobody is a clean estate to wind up. That is also a fair description of what went wrong with it.

Nine months, one tenant on an expired lease, $172,617 spent keeping the lights on and the doors locked, and an unpriced listing that drew 777 clicks and one unconditional offer. The application asks for approval of the sale, a distribution, approval of the Receiver's activities and fees, and its discharge — the whole file closed in a single sitting, per Application, June 29, 2026 and Bench Brief, June 29, 2026.