Phoenix: Victorian style to high-tech efficiency
Genial and well-organized manager that he is, he also provides an efficient history lesson, most of it unprompted. The mini-version goes something like this: ❚ Moves to Canada from his native India in the early 1970s to do a master’s degree in engineering at Montreal’s Concordia University. “There was a big immigration of educated people from India then,” he says, referring to Kris Singhal (Richcraft Homes) and Bill Malhotra (Claridge Homes). ❚ Gets a phone call from India saying, “Come home: We’ve engaged you” — arranged marriages still being de rigueur at the time. ❚ Winds up working long days as a construction site engineer in Montreal, heading to night classes and then the library till closing time, trotting back home to study till 1 a.m., and firing up the whole cycle again a few hours later. “It was not easy. You learn to manage your time, your finances.” ❚ Graduates, joins a Montreal firm that was a precursor to engineering-construction giant SNC Lavalin, moves to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., where he becomes a senior executive in charge of land development, packs in the secure government job to launch a land development firm.
“In my heart, I was always driven to be an entrepreneur. I felt I could develop a niche because I’d seen at CMHC that small builders needed lots. Entrepreneurs are always looking for niches.”
They’re also looking for chances to think big and creatively. He’s no exception.
He says, for example, that he was the first Ottawa builder to make extensive use of Victorian styling and other features when he built the Kanata community of Heritage Hills back in the mid-1990s, a community where he’s still selling homes.
He also nabbed media attention a decade ago for developing a method to turn the sheath of rice grains into silica. That relatively inexpensive product strengthened cement and increased its resistance to detrimental elements such as salt.
Although Kochar long ago sold the silica plant he built in India, his eyes still flash with excitement when he talks about his invention.
He’s also expanded DCR/Phoenix to include granite and quartzite production in Brazil, using the products in his own projects and selling some to other builders. It’s one of the areas of the company that he continues to manage directly.
As well, in 2000 he built the opulent Millennium House, which incorporated technology such as high-speed Internet and multiple computerized controls — advanced stuff at the time.
The home was initially open for public tours, with the money raised going to the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario. He’s lived in it ever since, although he’ll soon be moving to newer digs.
He chalks up these and other achievements, in part, to the love of learning and respect for formal education instilled by his father, a medical doctor who, at 99, is still in fine fettle and lives with Kochar and his wife, Madhu. (“He’s the patriarch,” says Kochar about his father. “He still gives me s--- if I do something wrong.”)
As a youngster, says Kochar, “I was always kind of nerdy — I liked my studies.” He remains a voracious reader and will travel long distances for a first-rate meal.
He’s also an avid supporter of education, having just established a $1.2-million scholarship at Carleton University for engineering, architecture and urban-planning students from India.
The home buyers who have helped make all this possible have changed considerably over the years, he says. Thanks to the Internet, they’re “extremely well-informed. It’s made it easier for us to upsell (features) because they already know about them.”
The housing market has also shifted, with land inside the urban boundary now scarce. DCR/Phoenix still owns plots, but they’re mostly smaller and dispersed. That, along with the high cost of both land and development charges in Ottawa, has meant an expansion into outlying areas with projects such as White Tail Ridge in Almonte and Westhaven Gate in Arnprior as well as teaming up with The Regional Group for a future development near Findlay Creek.
Beyond some smaller-scale land development in Toronto and lowrise condo projects such as Daly Square in downtown Ottawa, Kochar says the company has no immediate plans to expand into other cities or tackle the highrise condo market. And why would he? DCR/ Phoenix sales for housing, granite and land are expected to hit $120 million this year.
He’s tickled, of course, that Rahul, who has one sister — a lawyer in Florida — will eventually take over the business. Rahul, in his mid-30s and with an MBA, has inherited not just his father’s congeniality, but his all-guns-blazing approach, as well.
“I started out in IT studies,” says Rahul, “but in the summers I worked in the trenches, in construction, at Phoenix. That was it. I told my dad that I wanted in.”
Says his father, “Sometimes children don’t like the business that you do. He loves it, so there’s a succession plan.”