Beyond the bricks and mortar

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When brothers Louis, Gilbert, Irving and Lorry Greenberg built their first modest house in Ottawa’s Heron Gate neighbourhood in 1955, they probably didn’t dream that their development firm would build its 100,000th residential property 68 years later.

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The brothers called their fledgling company Mercury Homes. Two years later, they renamed it Minto Construction Company. And in late September 2023, what is now the Minto Group announced the closing of its 100,000th home. That figure that includes houses, townhouses and condominiums, but not purpose-built rentals.

The company currently employs just over 1,400 people across North America. It has 5,827 units under construction — for both rental and sale — in 23 projects across the continent, including 664 units in five Ottawa developments.

Brent Strachan, President, Ontario at Minto Communities Canada, credits the company’s success to several factors, especially design.

“When I say design, it’s not just about the outside façade. It’s also about the suite and design layouts. [Minto] has always been strong at delivering a product that is very livable,” he says. Over the years, Minto has won multiple awards for design, including all six Ontario awards handed out by the Canadian Housing Design Council in 1969–70.

Strachan notes that the company embraced innovation from its earliest days, pointing to Horizon House, today known simply as The Horizon. The 11-storey tower on Meadowlands Drive in Nepean was Ontario’s first high-rise condominium building when it opened in 1968.

In recent years, that focus on trying new things has also led to a series of environmentally friendly projects and green building awards. Minto has built 10 net-zero demonstration homes since 2008 and it constructed one of Canada’s first LEED-certified condo towers (the Radiance at Minto Gardens in Toronto). The company is currently building North Oak Tower 3 in Oakville, one of the first high-rise condos in the GTA to be heated and cooled with a geothermal system.

Since its beginnings in Ottawa, Minto has steadily expanded to other regions, starting with Florida in 1978. Why Florida? It appealed to the Greenbergs due to a combination of land availability and population growth, Strachan explains.

Later expansions saw the company start building in Toronto (1986), Calgary (2012) and elsewhere. It recently broke ground on rental buildings in Greater Vancouver and Greater Victoria, two new markets for the firm.

Entering a market with purpose-built rentals is a common approach at Minto. It allows the company to become familiar with local tradespeople, building requirements and design preferences, and to test new materials and technologies, Strachan says.

With that understanding of local conditions, the company moves into building homes and condos for buyers.

Strachan believes that strategy differentiates his company from many of its competitors. He says it is possible for someone to start in a Minto rental apartment and move from there into an entry-level stacked townhouse, then a single-family home. Once the kids have flown the nest, homeowners could move into a Minto condo or bungalow, or even a retirement property in Florida.

He also notes that Minto builds more than homes. In many cases, it designs complete communities, including amenities such as parks and schools. The many Ottawa neighbourhoods that Minto helped create include Pineview, Beacon Hill South, Tanglewood, Crystal Beach and Qualicum.

The company’s momentum hasn’t stopped. In May 2022, in one of the priciest land deals in Ottawa’s history, Minto paid $245 million for 212 acres of land straddling the Kanata-Stittsville border. There, it’s building a development called Abbott’s Run, with options ranging from townhouses starting at $646,900 to five-bedroom homes starting at $1,091,900.

Strachan notes that Minto is also working to address the current housing affordability requirements with projects such as Anthem, which opens to buyers today. Stacked, two-bedroom townhomes in the Barrhaven development will start at the high $300,000s.

Since the company builds roughly 1,000 units a year in Ottawa, many Ottawans have probably lived in a Minto-built property at some point. However, even those who haven’t are likely familiar with the company’s name through its community initiatives. For instance, Minto donated $25 million to the Ottawa Hospital and $250,000 to mental health and wellness services at the Orleans Health Hub in 2022.

One of its best-known and most popular charity projects is the CHEO Dream Home. Since 2001, Minto has built every one of these mansions, which have helped raise millions for the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario through the Dream of a Lifetime Lottery.

This year’s CHEO Dream Home, a 4,383-square-foot mansion in the Mahogany area of Manotick, is valued at just over $3 million (including furnishings). Ticket sales close on Friday, Dec. 15.