Housing affordability initiatives nothing new for Vancouver-based developer
Concert, which has built both rental and market homes, is structured on a unique business model
Amid the social turmoil and political debate over the urgent issue of affordable housing across Canada, there is a Vancouver-based company that has been quietly going about providing housing solutions for the last three decades.
In fact, Concert, among the province’s largest developers, got its start with one of the most successful affordable housing projects to be built in Vancouver, says Brian McCauley, the company’s president and CEO.
“We have roots in the delivery of affordable housing going back to 1989,” he says. “The first deal we did with the City of Vancouver was a long-term land lease deal on several city sites where we delivered just under 1,000 rental homes on 80-year land leases. They continue to be some of the best managed and affordable housing in Vancouver today.”
Concert’s business has grown into one of the largest of its kind in Canada, with an estimated $5 billion in assets under management and administration in B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario. The nature of that business has expanded significantly as well. While Concert is probably best known to Vancouverites as a condominium developer, that is just one part of its overall business, says McCauley.
“We build for-sale condominium and rental residential homes, senior lifestyles communities, (acquired and developed) a portfolio of office and industrial properties and are one of the largest builders of multisite infrastructure projects in North America.”
From the get-go, Concert’s beginnings as a business set it apart from most development companies of its size in Canada. The company’s founders—the late Jack Poole and David Podmore, the company’s current chair—got their start through a unique ownership structure: it was capitalized mainly by union and management pension plans, a move that has no doubt influenced many of its later business decisions.
“Former Telecommunications Workers Union president Bill Clark was concerned that most union pension fund investment was being done through Toronto and New York, and was being invested in assets that were remote,” says McCauley. “Bill really wanted to see the local pension plans invest in assets in their own backyard and put their money to work in the province.”
Poole and Podmore, who had already spent considerable time in land development, including putting together a bid to compete with Hong Kong business magnate Li Kashing for the purchase of the Expo 86 lands, got some help from then Vancouver Mayor Gordon Campbell, says McCauley.
Campbell introduced the pair to Clark, who persuaded several other unions to join in the new venture. With further participation from the provincial government and the City of Vancouver, Concert was born in 1989. It was a true public-private partnership long before there was anything known by that name. Since then, Concert, now owned by 19 union and management pension plans, has contributed in excess of $130 million to affiliated Canadian pension, health and welfare plans.
Concert continues to cultivate its various lines of business, including meeting the urgent need for purpose-built rental housing in B.C. and Ontario, he says, describing Concert as a “long-term builder-holder” of rental housing. With a significant number of rental suites in its development pipeline, McCauley stresses how important it is that industry continue working with government at all levels to identify solutions that stimulate rental home construction, helping to sustain and expand supply.
“We have about 10,000 homes in our pipeline right now, and I would say almost a third of those, just under 3,000 suites, are earmarked for rental residential.”
Chief among its projects is a master-plan development in west Coquitlam that will provide about 2,700 new transit-oriented homes. That development includes condominiums, seniors and affordable housing, as well as more than 1,000 rental suites, making it the largest single injection of rental homes in Metro Vancouver.
In Victoria, Concert’s Capital Park Residences’ master-planned development, which includes purpose-built rental, office buildings and a boutique collection of condominiums and townhomes, is taking shape. Developed in partnership with Jawl Properties, Capital Park is rejuvenating an entire city block in the heart of Victoria, reflecting Concert’s commitment to thoughtful planning and community building.
That community focus goes hand in hand with Concert’s philanthropic DNA, which was shaped by the company’s co-founders and remains reflected in its many Community Works initiatives, including more than $3.3 million contributed to trades training across Canada and $750,000 in time, talent and resources dedicated to establishing the Burn Fund Centre in B.C.