Rental apartment construction was supposed to fix Canada’s housing crisis, but developers are struggling

RioCan's Living division was an attempt by the company to diversify its retail portfolio by building rental apartment towers.

Seven years ago, RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust, one of Canada’s best-known real estate companies, set out to reinvent itself. RioCan made its name owning suburban power centres with tenants that included Canadian Tire and Dollarama, but by 2018 the proliferation of e-commerce had investors spooked. To pivot, RioCan launched a new division, called Living, with a goal of building rental apartment towers that would diversify its retail portfolio.

Real estate development is notoriously risky, but the timing seemed sublime. Canada was already grappling with a housing shortage, and the Trudeau government had plans to accept more immigrants, which would only exacer