STRATEGIC GROUP TACKLES NEED FOR LIVING SPACE
Projects underway to develop, construct and repurpose buildings for residential use
Randy Ferguson, who joined Strategic Group in 2012 as chief operating officer, has been appointed president of the Calgary-based company that has become one of the largest privately held real estate firms in the country, with more than $1.5 billion in assets.
Strategic Group owns, manages and develops office, retail and apartment properties across Canada, with a reach from Vancouver to Atlantic Canada.
Ferguson is a seasoned real estate professional with more than 40 years of industry experience. His career began in Toronto with Oxford Properties where he worked his way up though middle-management positions to director and a vice-president role in 1999 when he was transferred to Edmonton.
His task there was to oversee the repurposing of four Oxford-owned buildings into a major retail downtown amenity renamed City Centre. One of his major achievements there was to build a 70-foot wide, two-storey high pedway connector.
Ferguson moved to Calgary in 2011 where he had worked with 20 Vic on the redevelopment of The Core, and was asked to join Strategic Group by CEO Riaz Mamdani the following year.
At that time the company’s portfolio was made up primarily of commercial properties, with only around 200 multi-family units owned. Mamdani is a visionary who believed he ought
to diversify in this province and address what he felt was a growing need for rental apartments here. More than 50 per cent of rental properties were built in the 1970s and he felt young people wanted a modern space to live in, were not interested in paying a mortgage with their earnings, we were still welcoming new Calgarians, and seniors were better served by renting after selling their homes.
Today, Strategic has almost 4,000 units across Canada with 1,625 completed apartments in Calgary, with another 995 under construction and a further 1,000plus units in the development stages here.
With the current oversupply of office space, Ferguson is concentrating on new builds and conversions to residential properties. In Edmonton, Strategic is repurposing two of its office buildings into rental apartments and work has begun in Calgary to convert its six-storey tower on the corner of 11th Avenue and 11th Street S.W. into Cube, providing 67 contemporary design units ideally located in the Beltline district right across from the Midtown Co-op store.
Most of the Strategic residential properties are mid-size, including the $25-million, six-storey, under-construction Marda development on 34th Avenue S.W. that will offer 66 apartment units above 8,900 square feet of retail. But also under construction is ONE, a 37-storey apartment tower on the busy corner of 10th Avenue and 1st Street S.E., kitty corner to Palliser South. A big hole for more than a decade, the Strategic team worked with IBI Group to design a mixed-use building that will offer 379 units, including two luxury penthouse suites, over ground floor retail.
Another major development that has suffered delays is the conversion of the downtown Barron Building on the corner of 8th Avenue and 5th Street S.W. Purchased by Strategic 10 years ago, work is now underway for a revitalization and upgrading of the classic 11-storey former office/retail property into 94 apartment units at a total cost of $100 million.
Ferguson says it’s exciting to see work finally underway to add 112 units to the downtown that will be connected to the Plus-15 system through the new 27-storey Manulife office tower.
And he is equally excited to be appointed president of the company he sees as truly creative and unconventional, transitioning into his new role to create and execute value-add initiatives, new development projects and strategies for the firm’s continued growth.