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Alberta commercial real estate

Bespoke real estate
solutions.

We advise owners, tenants and investors across Alberta, from the first business plan to the signed lease.

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Multiple disciplines, one firm.

Properties available now.

All properties

Brands we've been associated with

Krispy Kreme Miniso WOW Beauty Dickey's Barbecue Pit Church's Chicken Peter's Drive-In Suncor

Consultation

Business plan insights.

A national franchise walks into a landlord meeting with a plan the franchisor wrote for them. Independent operators rarely have that, and it is usually what costs them the space rather than the rent.

So we sit down and build it. Thirteen years of retail leasing across this market, applied to your numbers, until you have something a landlord will underwrite.

Sometimes that work says take the space. Sometimes it says take a smaller one, or a different corridor, or wait a year. Either way you walk into the meeting with the same thing the franchise has.
Book a session Or try it with your own numbers
  1. 1,000 sq ft

    We start with the space you are considering

    Size, corridor and configuration, and whether the footprint actually matches how your business runs.

  2. $5,000 to $6,000 per month

    Then what it will carry

    Rent, additional rent and the running costs. We build the real monthly number rather than the headline rate.

  3. 10,000 to 20,000 cups a month

    Then the volume. A coffee shop, say

    Working back from the monthly cost to what your model actually has to move. That is roughly break even for a cafe at this overhead, before expenses and well before profit.

Full cycle. One local team.

Owners come to us at one point in the cycle and stay for the rest: consulting on the plans, buying the asset, pre-leasing it, then selling it or managing it and stabilising it. One Edmonton team carries the file the whole way.

Plan Buy Pre-lease Manage Sell Abdul Khurshed Afsar Khurshed

  • Tenants come through the brokerage

    A vacancy is filled by a fit, not by the next applicant.

  • Cash flow comes first

    Full reporting, and your approval before any work proceeds.

  • We inspect before we manage

    One roof flagged five years out, and replaced before it became a heating bill.

  • Locally owned and led

    An Edmonton team whose careers were built in this market. Decisions on your file are made here.

Read Groundwork

Bring us the assignment before it becomes a problem.

Positioning an asset, looking for the right location, or deciding whether a building is worth holding. Start with fifteen minutes.

Book a 15 minute call 780-446-5250

Common questions

Before you get in touch.

The questions we are asked most often, answered the way we would answer them on a call.

Where does Zenith Commercial work?

Our corporate head office is at 12230 106 Avenue in Edmonton, and that is where in-person meetings happen. We work across Alberta, with most of our work in the northern half of the province from Red Deer up.

Is Zenith Commercial a local firm?

Yes. Zenith is locally owned and led, from our head office at 12230 106 Avenue in Edmonton. Our team built their careers in Alberta commercial real estate, and every decision on your file is made here, by the people you meet.

Do you act for tenants or for landlords?

Both, but never on the same deal. On any given assignment we represent one side of the table and advocate for that side only. We handle tenant and landlord representation across retail, industrial, office and land.

I run an independent business, not a franchise. Will a landlord take me seriously?

Yes, provided you arrive prepared. Landlords lean toward nationals partly because a franchisor hands them a ready-made business plan, and independents usually turn up without one. That gap is closeable, and closing it is most of what we do before you ever see a space. A strong local operator with a credible plan often serves a property better than another identical franchise.

What should I have ready before I start looking at space?

A clear view of your competitive advantage, how you expect to scale, and the volume your business needs to do. That last one matters most. A space carries a monthly cost whether or not anyone has worked out what it takes to cover it, and that number should decide which spaces you look at rather than being discovered afterwards.

Does Zenith manage properties as well as lease them?

Yes, and the two teams sit together rather than operating separately. That means vacancies can be filled through the brokerage side, so a tenant is a fit rather than simply the next applicant. We also inspect a property end to end before agreeing to manage it, and tell the owner what we found.

What do you look at when pricing a property for sale?

Six things, and they interact: net income, location, investment quality, building quality, tenant mix, and how replaceable those tenants are. Net income is where every conversation starts and the least useful of the six on its own. Two buildings with identical income can be worth materially different amounts.

Are all your available properties listed on this site?

No. A good deal of what we hold never reaches a public listing. If you are looking for something specific, a corridor, a bay size, a corner, it is worth asking rather than waiting for it to appear here.

The rate on a listing is not what I end up paying. What is the rest of it?

Additional rent. The advertised rate is net rent, which goes to the landlord. Additional rent is your share of what it costs to run the building: property taxes, insurance, common area maintenance and management. Both are quoted per square foot per year, and the two added together are your occupancy cost. Our listings show the net rate, the additional rent and the total side by side, and where a figure has not been set it reads On request rather than being left blank.