Honouring a lifetime dedicated to building GTA communities
The Greater Toronto Area was not built in a day. It’s taken decades for it to evolve into the thriving, diverse region it is today. Many GTA neighbourhoods were first imagined by visionary city builders who took a chance, bought some property, assembled a team and went to work designing and constructing homes and business spaces.
As a salute to these visionary homebuilding and land development industry trailblazers, BILD bestows its annual Lifetime Achievement Award to one member who has dedicated their life to building communities across the GTA.
In years past, this recognition has been given to builders such as last year’s recipient, Monarch Developments’ past president Colin Parsons. BILD’s Lifetime Achievement Award has also highlighted the immense impact of well-known builders such as Greenpark Homes’ chairman and CEO Carlo Baldassar- ra, Lebovic Enterprises Limited’s Joseph Lebovic, The Remington Group’s chairman and CEO Rudolph Bratty, as well as Angelo, Elvio and Leo Del Zotto, the brothers at the helm of Tridel.
This year’s recipient is Ignat (Iggy) Kaneff, CEO and chairman of the Kaneff Group of Companies.
A strong believer in building communities and a generous philanthropist, Kaneff has helped to improve the lives of many right here in the GTA and in his hometown in Bulgaria over the last 65 years. For this and much more, we will present him with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 36th annual BILD Awards on April 28.
Born in Gorno, Ablanovo, Bulgaria in 1926, he came to Canada in 1951 and founded Kaneff Properties Limited in 1956. A BILD member since 1959, Kaneff has built thousands of family homes and highrise residential apartment units, as well as retail commercial plazas and office buildings in the GTA.
An avid golfer, he has also developed and built six golf course properties, including the first-class Lionhead, Royal Ontario and Royal Niagara Golf Clubs. For 45 years, he has hosted an annual tournament that’s raised more than $1.5 million for Community Living, a Peel Region organization supporting children with intellectual disabilities.
Over the years, he has also generously donated to many other charitable organizations and campaigns, both through personal contribu- tions and the I. Kaneff Charitable Foundation, established by his wife, Dimitriana, in 1986. His philanthropic efforts have benefitted educational, health, social services and arts causes at home and in his native Bulgaria where he has built a new kindergarten, a modern community centre to serve local villages and a state-of-the-art university student centre at the University of Ruse.
There are many city builders in the GTA who have dedicated their lives to creating lively communities and every year we celebrate them and share their stories. To learn more about BILD, visit bildawards.com Bryan Tuckey is president and CEO of the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) and is a land-use planner who has worked for municipal, regional and provincial governments. Find him at twitter.com/ bildgta, facebook.com/bildgta and bildblogs.ca.