DEVELOPMENT: Award-winning family firm takes on 2010 task
Ashley Ford
Province
Millennium’s Shahram (left) and Peter Malek show their plans for the 2010 Olympic Village. Photograph by : Nick Procaylo, The Province
Millennium Development Corp. hopes to begin construction of the 2010 Olympic Village in east False Creek before the end of this year.
Brothers Shahram and Peter Malek, who along with their father, Amir, run the family company, said in an interview with The Province on Friday “we put our very best foot forward for this project.
“We have been looking at this area for several years and are excited to get this opportunity,” they say.
They pledge to create a “legendary development that is inclusive and sustainable” and are anxious to get on with the job as it has to be completed by late 2009.
It will eventually contain 250 non-market-housing units and approximately 800-1,000 market-housing units.
The Maleks, who arrived here in 1981, are no stranger to Olympic-style developments, having built a 100,000-seat stadium, sports complex and village for the 1974 Asian Games in Tehran.
They joke that their first Vancouver project, the underground parkade at B.C. Place, wasn’t noticed by anyone.
The family has been in the development business for six decades and operates out of the heritage Province Building they restored at 198 West Hastings. Their father, a civil engineer, continues to play a major role in the company.
Peter is also a civil engineer and Shahram has an MBA.
They prefer to work quietly and have a solid reputation as developers who have a strong social conscience and even stronger sense of high standards and performance.
They have consistently produced excellent developments, rattling up an impressive honour roll of awards for their labours including winner of the GVRD’s Most Livable Region Award for City in the Park and most recently the Canadian Home Builders’ Association SAM award for the best multi-family housing project in Canada.
They’re paying $193 million, roughly $202 a buildable square foot, for the 2.6-hectare site, a new national land-price record.
Competitor Peter Wall, head of Wall Financial Corp., smilingly admits he underestimated the competition with his $150 million bid.
“I thought it was a bit steep but I also think it was a fair price and they will do very well. This is a great city and there is a shortage of downtown land.” And the canny Wall has acquired the whole of the 100 block on First Avenue looking over the village site for a major condo development.
Bob Rennie, of Rennie Marketing Systems, said he got the call to join the project “ten minutes after they got the approval.”
“This is an important project and you have to look at it as one that will be on Vancouver postcards for years. In other words, a legendary project for Vancouver.
“I have worked with the Maleks for over 13 years. They are extremely progressive and clearly understand working with and respecting the public good,” says Rennie.
A perfect example of their “social thinking” is L’Hermitage en Ville at Robson and Richards, he said. When a zoning/planning hurdle arose they rejigged their plans to create 47 social housing units in a project that will boast high-end condos, hotel and retail, he said.
Rennie, also involved in the Woodward’s redevelopment and the new Fairmont Pacific Rim hotel on the waterfront, does not think the land price is too high.
“Fortunately, or unfortunately, in life what is an aggressive move on Monday is the norm by Friday,” he said.
The Urban Futures Institute’s David Baxter says, “It’s going to be the newest, hippest area of the downtown. It is eventually going to be a signal development that will bring a whole new flavour to the city core.”
© The Vancouver Province 2006