The Bow, so named for the Bow River that runs through Calgary,is slated to be the new headquarters of EnCana Corp., a natural gasproducer that is also involved in the extraction of oil fromCanada's huge tar sands reserves and is one of Canada's largestpublicly held companies. The Bell project would be phase three of acomplex that already includes nearly 775,000 square feet of officespace leased to units of Bell Canada.

The 58-story Bow will be the largest single-tenant officecomplex in Western Canada and will become upon completion thepremier trophy property in H&R REIT's 41-million-square-footportfolio, H&R execs said in announcing the project in 2007.The quoted rate at the time of the deal—which is a 25-yeartriple-net lease—wasapproximately $36.37 per square foot withannual rental increases of 1.5%.

H&R expects to incur approximately $390 million of the $1.1billion in construction costs for the Bow and Bell projects duringthe next 12 months. Tom Hofstedterpresident and CEO of theToronto-based REIT, stated in its recent earnings report that, "Atpresent there are no financing arrangements in place on any of theREIT's development projects, and the current difficult economicconditions have impacted H&R's financing strategy."