(56) 42 Years of Development Lessons on Building Better Communities - Jake Cohen - Daniels Corporation

Jake Cohen, president of the Daniels Corporation, shares development lessons from Daniels’ 42-year history as a vertically integrated development and construction company that has delivered over 40,000 homes, including purpose-built rentals, more than 15 seniors residences, and 7,800 affordable housing units, notably through work with Toronto Community Housing in Regent Park. He describes his intentional career path from site labor and pre-delivery inspections to head office roles, emphasizing a culture of craftsmanship and detail. Cohen highlights customer care, service, and warranty as an undervalued function that provides essential feedback for better upfront design, leading to Daniels’ Accessibility Design Standard and broader universal design practices informed by lived-experience testing. He discusses balancing customization with scalable processes, prioritizing people over process, planning master-planned communities with long-term operations in mind, interest in faster low-rise family housing, and the importance of patience in development. He also cites reducing market uncertainty as key to improving housing affordability conditions.

Daniels Corporation Overview
Quality and Craftsmanship
Undervalued Customer Care
Customization vs Scale
People vs Process
Starting from Scratch Principles
Accessibility Design Standard
Industry Trends Ahead

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Transcript

Payam: Good morning, Jake. Welcome to the show. How are you doing today?

Jacob: Wonderful. Thank you for having me

Payam: Aztek, thanks for being here. Would you mind introducing yourself to our audience, please?

Jacob: Absolutely. Uh, I am Jake Cohen. am the president of the Daniels Corporation

Payam: A little bit more maybe. So let's, let's go back. What is-- who is the Daniels Corporation? Like, tell us a little bit more about Daniels Corporation, specifically for people who are not from Toronto or GTA region, and I'm, I'm-- I believe that we do have some also international listeners. Who is Daniels? What do you guys do?

What's the size of operation? Maybe we go through that a little bit.

Jacob: Absolutely. Happy to do that. So the Daniels Corporation is a vertically integrated development and construction company. we have been around for forty-two years. Uh, came into existence in nineteen eighty-four. I've been around for twenty-one of those forty-two years, uh, so about half the journey. Um, in [00:01:00] terms of what we do at the Daniels Corporation, the forty-two years, uh, we've been in existence, uh, we have delivered over forty thousand homes. So those homes can be in a wide variety of, uh, of different typologies, predominantly the condo market a-and condominium development. But we have also, for the probably the last fifteen years, uh, delivered a number of purpose-built rental buildings, uh, with partners, institutional partners, institutional capital, and also for ourselves internally. We've had long-standing relationships with a number of seniors operators, so we've de-delivered over fifteen seniors residences, uh, over our history and continue to develop and build seniors residences. Uh, we also have, uh, and a big, uh, affordable housing program that we have been building for for many years. Of the forty thousand homes we've built, seventy-eight hundred of those have been [00:02:00] in the affordable housing sector. Um, a lot of that has been with Toronto Community Housing, uh, which was a project that we worked on with them over a fifteen, twenty-year period in Regent Park. Um, but we have roots in affordable housing because our CEO, Mitchell Cohen, um, also my father, uh, was the very first hire of the Daniels Corporation by John Daniels, or we called him Jack Daniels, uh, in nineteen eighty-four. And Mitchell came from the co-op housing sector, uh, in Montreal and had deep roots in and desire to want to deliver affordable housing for, uh, his job and for a business. And so when Mr. Daniels was starting the Daniels Corporation, he asked around to find out who's the preeminent knowledge base, uh, uh, developer, um, person in the affordable housing sector.

And at the time, uh, in Toronto, Mitchell was that person. So we have [00:03:00] affordable housing deeply into our roots, uh, and have done that for many, many years, along with a number of the other typologies that I described before.

Payam: Awesome. That's a, that's a very good intro. And yes, for those of, uh, our listeners who are not from Toronto, if you've ever been in Toronto, you've probably... There's a very good chance that you've, uh, driven or walked by one of your projects, one of Daniels Corporation's projects. If you've gone to University of Toronto, you've probably seen the Daniels building there.

So you guys have a definitely very, uh, pulse, m- uh, we can, we can feel your presence in city of Toronto, so that's, and that's a good thing. So I, there are so many tracks that I wanna kind of pursue in this conversation with you today. Uh, but something that just popped into my mind right now, and maybe it's not a bad place to start, is that you, you, you just mentioned you've been there for 50% of the length of the, or the legacy of this corporation, right?

And you're a third in command in, in [00:04:00] the line of people who've, who've been at the helm of this corporation, basically. And, um, walk us through that journey, because I think it, when reading about you and doing some research, it feels like your role and your transition was very, very intentional from the 20- 2005 that you started in the company.

Is that correct?

Jacob: Yeah, absolutely. It was, it was in- intentional as I got into the company a little bit further and my journey kind of grew in the company. I definitely didn't have aspirations as a 17-year-old, 18-year-old when I started of where I would be today. Um, I didn't know that I wanted to be in development and construction.

Uh, my first job prior to being, working at the Daniels Corporation was as a tennis instructor. Uh, so, uh, you know, I didn't have, you know, didn't go to school necessarily for development. I- my first job at Daniels after teaching tennis, um, was working [00:05:00] on the construction sites, l- uh, low-rise site labor side of things.

So I worked on a number of construction sites, uh, for a number of years, uh, and got to know that side of the business. Um, you know, m- moving around, uh, a site like that, understanding what's going on, uh, on a low-rise site, um, and getting to kind of meet the team that way. So I did that for a number of years, and then transitioned a little bit into doing pre-delivery inspections of some of those low-rise sites.

And I got the benefit of Working with some amazingly talented supers and general supers, uh, and people at the company who were legacy people at the company that really understood how to deliver quality housing, and that's really what stuck with me, uh, especially in those early years about it's one thing to just slap up a building or slap up a unit or a townhouse.

It's another thing to think about the quality that's being delivered, the workmanship that's being delivered, [00:06:00] and truly using the value and the ethos that picture this was your house. This is your home that you're building. that really stuck with me. That stuck with me through my entire journey. I, I mean, one-- I'll give you one example that kind of sticks with me.

Uh, it's, you know, walking around with one of our general supers early in the morning. He would always pick me up at the same street in Mississauga at around six AM, and we would kind of travel around to the different sites. And when we would go to one of the sites, we were looking at a pre-delivery inspection of one of the townhouses, so we had a bunch of green tape that we would be putting in areas if the drywall was a little out or if the light fixture was not quite right. he pointed out to me, uh, the light switch caps, so the caps that go on light switches. And if you can picture them, they always will have a screw that's either horizontal or it's vertical. And he said, "What I'm gonna tell the, the, the, the guys who are working on the site is I want every one of those screws to either be vertical or [00:07:00] horizontal, but they both have to be that, and they have to be matching." And that's pretty particular, right? That's very-- That's like, that's a level of

Payam: I love that. I love that

Jacob: yeah, that I wasn't expecting. Uh, and for the, for the guys on site, the, the handyman who was doing there with his screwdriver, making sure each one was vertical, in that case, it was vertical, it was asking for a level of attention to detail that was asking for a hundred and ten percent. if you ask for 110%, can you get to 100, you know, in, in the end? 'Cause again, there's human error, there's time, there's, you know, things happen. But that really stuck with me, that quality is important, and paying attention is important to those details. And as I transitioned, uh, from the site, uh, labor side of things into head office, kind of after a number of years working on the sites, got to touch a number of other parts of the business.

Um, I had the benefit of working in a group called Project [00:08:00] Implementation. prob- Project Implementation got to touch kind of all the different elements of a, of a development process. Uh, we got to look at design. We got to look at the pro formas. We got to talk about sales and marketing. Um, we got to look at estimating and contracting, and who are we using, and what trades. And so I got to move around, uh, the, a number of the different groups within the company, and I think that really benefited my trajectory and the evolution of my role because I got to meet and really ingrain myself with all the senior leaders of the company at the time that had been with Mitchell and, and the president, he was the president at the time, and had been incredibly successful in what they have done. So I wasn't trying to do anything different. I was just simply trying to learn from them, learn from the talent that they had, learn from the experience that they had in [00:09:00] delivering housing, th- thinking about quality, thinking about the end user in mind, that this is a home that people want to live in. And I just kinda ingrained myself in that and learned from every one of the different departments and department heads to gain, I would say most importantly, level of trust. It was really important for myself in my position to gain that trust with these various groups, uh, so that again, I'm not there to tell them what to do or change things or do things differently. I'm there to follow and to watch and to understand. And I think I spent a good 15 years doing that across the different departments to truly understand how the company works

Payam: That's fantastic. I very much love that, uh, example or anecdote that you said about the, the screws being vertical or horizontal, and it also goes to ta- it talks a ton about the, the, the, the, the leader that you were with because in absence of actual direction, people get [00:10:00] lost, right? And that's, that's regardless-- It doesn't matter if it's vertical or horizontal, it's a direction, it's a point, it's a reference point, it's a benchmark that for someone to s- for-- to have something to aim for and gauge themselves against, which is, which is a great thing to have in a corporation.

And, uh, otherwise, you have good people just running around not necessarily knowing what they're doing right or wrong. So I love that answer. But so you've moved through these, um, departments and roles and you've seen different... And, and I would assume Daniel's being the size that it is, which I would appreciate if you can elaborate how big the organization and chart and stuff is.

You would have seen different functions, different roles. If you were to look back and say, "You know what? I worked for a year or two or whatever in this par- particular part of the corporation, and I think this is the part that other developments or maybe even in your own company is underappreciated or the role is underestimated."

Is there, is there a team or department that you think is undervalued where people [00:11:00] should pay more attention to?

Jacob: Absolutely, no question. Such a good question. It's, uh, the customer care and service and warranty team. The customer care and service and warranty team is such an important group, uh, because they are the interface with the people who are buying the product that we are trying to sell, or that we are trying to rent, or that we are creating. Um, my experience on the customer care service and warranty team was kind of second. I went from head off-- I went from the site to then customer care, service, and warranty, and I got to work on a really specific job. Uh, it was at-- called Kilgour Estates, which was at Bayview, uh, just north of Eglinton. A beautiful residence, uh, you know, geared towards maybe a higher affluent, um, uh, group, uh, of people. Two hundred and twenty-five, two hundred and twenty-six units in two phases. But what I got to learn during that experience working with customer care, one of those units at that time we were [00:12:00] willing to do customizations for, which was a really interesting thing. It was an interesting time in the market because, uh, you know, someone was willing to spend quite a bit of money to buy a nice condo-sized unit.

Maybe they're downsizing, uh, maybe this is their forever condo environment, and they want it to be very specific. And so me, I was extremely eager to please. I was extremely eager. You know, you know, coming from construction, I'd seen some things fine, but I wanted to, again, continue to make my mark. And so working on the customer care service and warranty side of things, I got to field a lot of the phone calls from those two hundred and twenty-six purchasers who were saying, "Jake, you know, I've just moved into my unit.

It's wonderful. It's beautiful. However, um, I would love if you could change the height of where my, um, outlet is," as an example. Or, "Is it possible for you to install some grab bars in this location?" again, being very eager to be-- being relatively [00:13:00] new, wanting to please, I was always like, "Absolutely. Yes, no problem.

We can do it. We can do it all." would call construction, and construction team would say-- they'd look at me and they'd say, the tiles are in. me to install a grab bar now? How are we, how are we gonna do that other than tearing down the tiles, putting in the blocking, installing the grab bar?" I said, "But they want it. Mr. Jones, he, he, he desperately wants his grab bar in place." Uh, and they looked at me and again, they said, "What are we doing? Why are we doing this?" I said, "Well, we're trying to make our purchasers happy." And at the time, in a market where they were spending a lot of money, and they, they had a certain level of expectation, we wanted to do it. What I learned being that interface with these purchasers was it is way harder from a construction standpoint to try to retrofit, to try to bolt on than build it in right up front. Um, so it was

Payam: Amen.

Jacob: Yeah, so it was very interesting because I got to [00:14:00] collect a bunch of information from a number of these purchasers who all wanted to do various types of things and changes that again, once the building is built, once the bricks are up, once the windows are in, the drywall's up, it is way harder to make those kind of changes. you're thinking about design, and if you're thinking about e-accessibility or universal acce-accessibility and how to live in a home, it's way easier to do that if you start to design some of these features in right up front. And this was actually a really aha moment for me because it got me thinking about what are some of the things that we can do for our buildings, for our units from an upfront design standpoint to accommodate Mr.

Jones who's looking for some of these features that would be very difficult to build or add in later on. So this got me, uh, you know, very excited and got me really going on a path that we started to go down kind of 10 years after that, which was building, um, a [00:15:00] higher universal design standard and more universal accessible homes, building in many of these features that I was hearing and collecting from the various purchasers at that cust- during that customer care service and warranty stage.

So a long way of-- winded way of saying customer care, service and warranty are so underappreciated in that they are front-facing. They receive the information, the real-time information from how people want to live, and that getting translated to the design person, to then the c- architect or then the construction team is hugely important.

Closing that circle and saying, "Okay, we're getting feedback. Let's do some of these things next time around on the next building," hugely important to my growth, and I would say anyone else's if they're thinking about construction or development, is understand your purchaser, understand who is buying their home, understand who is looking to rent and what they're looking for. Get into their minds of what they're [00:16:00] trying to do because, uh, in the end, we're trying to deliver a product, and that product has to fit a certain person's needs. And, and if we're just blindly gonna be doing something, it, it's not gonna work out.

Payam: Uh, such a, such an interesting answer. So first of all, kudos to everyone who works in the customer care department. I have some friends who do that, and I'm always c- like applauding them because it takes a lot of patience, it takes a lot of flexibility, it l- takes a lot of great, uh, customer-facing skills, which quite honestly I don't have.

And so I, I, I'm saying like, "You guys are the best, so thank you for doing what you're doing." But it's also, it's also interesting because as you were, as we were talking, I was doing the math in my head, and so you guys have been around for 40, let's say 40 years for our argument's sake. You've delivered 40,000 units.

Rough math says you've delivered 1,000 units per year, right? And having worked on projects where we have delivered, let's [00:17:00] say at some point in time in my career when I was involved in like more bulky projects, we were delivering 100 to 200 units a year, and that was pretty challenging, right? And, uh, so part of me wants to think for you to be able to consistently or on average deliver around 1,000 units a year, you probably have very systematized checklists and processes and procedures in place, which kind of makes me question how do you customize that?

Because you're also customizing some work. Like how do you find that line? What's, what's the balance there?

Jacob: Yeah, absolutely. So i- it's really important, and I think the, the market has definitely evolved from that, that Kilgore Estate site where 226 customized units done twice in two phases, where each unit is actually individually specified, the flooring, the tile, the backsplash, the countertop, all of them were different. We took our learnings from that, and we [00:18:00] said, "Okay, how do we streamline this?" Because if we want to ramp the company up at that time and do more of this, we do need to have some specific things that we're gonna be following. And so it was a fine balance of, okay, introducing some more specific packages that have these features and colors and levels of customization, upgrade options.

Keeping that more in a contained box that says, "You can work within these five options, not these 15 or endless options." And I think as the world turns and as the, the markets evolve, you know, that, that high, high level of customization, there's still a place for that somewhere. But I think for Daniels, we slotted in after that project into somewhere slightly below that, which was, we wanna deliver lots of homes for various different people at various levels, not necessarily the highest end, at various levels of affordability, uh, and accessibility.

And so streamlining the customization while still remaining [00:19:00] relatively open to certain things that people might need and listening to those needs, that's what we-- where we learned to kind of get a little bit more flexible. I mean, having, um, certain very specific targets in mind about how many items p- per pre-delivery inspection we are going to have on our, uh, on a unit. items or less on any unit that you're walking through, big, small, medium-sized. the construction team focus on having only three items that are gonna be found is a benchmark, is a very high benchmark to get because it forces the construction team, the handyman, the finishing super, the group who is in there doing that hard work at the end of the day, to really pay attention and fine-tune. And when you're doing that at mass scale, that's very difficult. But it comes down to training, and it comes down, down to oversight. And again, we have systems in place where we have incredible oversight, incredible [00:20:00] training, but then we allow the groups who are in the buildings, the people who are in the building, again, to follow that procedure and then be able to try to meet those marks.

Does it happen every time? No. Every building can be a little bit different, certain nuances, certain challenges. But, uh, for the most part, hitting those benchmarks is really important to maintaining, you know, the, the level of standard that we're hoping to achieve.

Payam: I have to say that's a very high bar, having three PDI items on the, on the list. And for context, for those of our listeners who have not been through this process, uh, so what, what Jake is talking about is that when you buy a unit as purchaser, toward the end, just before you take occupancy, you have a chance of walking the unit w- uh, with someone you like or like a consultant or someone, and see things that are deficient in your mind to mark it up as part of your PDI or pre-delivery inspection form, which is part of a pr- ecosystem that I don't wanna get more into here.

And, uh, y- that, that [00:21:00] basically you're telling the builder that these are not to my satisfaction, and the ones that are valid, the, the builder goes there and they fix them before they turn the unit over to you. There are follow-up processes, w- and which again, we don't wanna dive too much into that. But getting it down to three items per unit is a very high bar.

And a personal anecdote inside story. A couple of years ago, a friend of mine had bought a condo, and, uh, I made a mistake of offering and saying, "Listen, like I work in construction. Do you want me to come with you for your P- pre-PDI walkthrough?" And we took the infamous green tape with us and went through the unit.

And I f- I regret that day very much because I end up picking too many items on that wall, and I thought I was doing him a service saying, "Look, here's all the deficiencies I could find in this unit." But he left-- it left him feeling, "I bought a crap product," which probably wasn't true. So I'm never gonna do that again.

But yes, uh, three, I, I wanna emphasize that three is a lot. And I don't know if [00:22:00] there's, if this is the right time to talk about it, but how much of this, um, bar hitting this target would you, um, say is a result of process, and how much of it would you say is a result of having the right people and talent?

Is it a 50/50 split? Is it a system that works like a McDonald's regardless of the talent or, or the other way around? Or is it actually a fair question to ask you that?

Jacob: no, it's totally fair. I think it's great. I think it's probably... And this is, uh, this is kind of my-- how I like to manage and understand our business and the way I've kind of watched it, and I think it's seventy/thirty. Seventy the right people, thirty the right process. I think you need process in place to a certain degree to ensure that certain things are being met, and we're gonna follow a certain standard, no question. However, you can put any processes you want in place, but if the person across the table from you when you are trying to teach them how it is or [00:23:00] what our standard needs to be don't care about that, don't share those values that we share as a company, matter what process you have. So you need, you need the right people, you need the right attitude, you need to know why you are there in the first place and what your role is.

And whether you're the PDI green tape person or you're the quality control construction person, whatever it is, you're there for a purpose and for a reason, and that's to deliver the best quality home possible to either an owner, an affordable housing agency that has purchased it, a renter who's looking to rent up and, and be there for a year or two years, whatever they want, a senior's housing, provider who's gonna be putting their seniors residences. It translates no matter what the typology. The quality is what matters, and the people who are there to execute that and follow that is what's the most important thing. So I gotta give all the credit. None of it is mine. I give it to, uh, our VP of [00:24:00] Customer Care and Service and Warranty, Rose Zoni, who has been in the business for a very long time.

It is unbelievable what she does in terms of compassion, shared values of wanting to deliver the best for the homeowners or the renters, um, and then having a playbook that she can follow that when she's thinking about hiring and bringing people on or teaching how it works, it's very easy to see what needs to be done.

Payam: Fantastic. Before we move on to the, uh, next segment of our conversation, I wanna ask you a hypothetical. You've been with the company for 20-something years. You've been, uh, you've witnessed firsthand in different positions the growth, what, what has worked, what has not worked in, in this process. And so hypothetically, if for whatever reason tomorrow morning Jake wants to start from scratch another company, which hopefully in the 20, 30, 40 years from now would be the next Daniels, right?

What are [00:25:00] some of the core principles or takeaways that you would take with you and say, "You know what? I don't have all that resources. I don't have that reputation. I don't have that team with me. We're gonna start from scratch. Here's ground zero. These are the five things we're gonna stick by to make it hap- to increase of our, increase our, uh, odds of getting there."

What are those?

Jacob: okay. Let's see. This is a good one. Uh Be humble. You, you don't know what you don't know, and I think that's a really important factor, at least from my perspective. This maybe doesn't work for everybody, but from what I can see. Surround yourself with people more talented and smarter than you are. I mean, that's fundamentally for me has always been a life advice that I've been given that says, like, you don't, you don't kn- you're not gonna know everything, so why don't you surround yourself with people who are gonna help you get to where you wanna get to?

So, surround yourself with talent. I had that. I was very lucky, as I mentioned earlier, about those, the OGs I'll [00:26:00] call them, who knew how to do the business and understood how to do the business. If you're starting from scratch, you don't need to be the smartest guy in the room. Find-- or smartest gal in the room.

Find the people around you to surround yourself with. So I think that's the, that's a good starting place. Understand the product of what you're trying to deliver. Truly understand it. And so start... You can start small. It doesn't need to be a massive three hundred and fifty unit rental building or four hundred unit condo tower. It can be smaller. It can be scalable. Uh, do something where you understand the units and think about livability. Thinking from the inside out is always a really important, again, thing that we've thought about at Daniels all the way along from a design perspective. don't let the form mess with the function.

There's a worse way of saying it, but I think you get the drift. Don't let the form mess with the function. Um, the function is really, really [00:27:00] important. How units live is really important. Um, a world of squeezing and tightening up units and having small, smaller everything. I mean, those work in certain circumstances, but they have to be livable.

How are they livable? Are there certain things that you can do to your unit designs to make them more livable, even if they are smaller? So I think that's it. Those are a couple things. Um, again, like I'll go back to the service and the warranty team and having some group-- having a person that's beside you that, again, shares the values of what you're trying to deliver. I guess us as a company are maybe a little bit more unique than some of the other development construction companies that are out there. We are a for-profit company, full stop. Private, for-profit company. There is no doubt. However, come from our affordable housing and co-op housing background and have roots in that space and have roots in wanting to deliver affordable housing or [00:28:00] find ways to deliver more affordable housing in some of the programs or parts of programs that we are working on. that comes with a certain level of value. And so making the right decisions around development, yes, the be all and the end all dollar, it can matter, yes, and it probably should matter for many, many people. But are there other things that you can gain along the way when you are building? there capacity building that you can bring along the way when you are doing a design or doing a build or having construction? there local community engagement that you can do along the way to not be the big, bad developer who's coming in to gentrify or to knock down old and put up new and kick you out and bring in new? There are ways to get around that by being very open and honest and front-facing in terms of what it is that you're trying to d- do and what it is you're trying to accomplish. Um, [00:29:00] every step of the way, it is hugely important to deliver the bricks and mortar of a building, putting it up. That, that is hugely important. But there are things that you can be doing along the way, spending the right kind of money to help enhance the communities in which you're building within. It probably won't cost you more, but may just require you to think a little bit differently. I'll give you just one small example that's, that's an easy one, and this is one that for anyone that they can take if they're trying to... if they're building or they have a building going And I'm not trying to gatekeep this because I think this is good for all communities. We have, we have our roots in arts and culture as well.

We, we, we love to support the arts, arts and culture. Every one of our condos, our rentals, our seniors buildings, they come with... Usually, if you're filling up the lobbies or the walls of the ha- corridors, you're filling the space with, with artwork, and you usually have a budget for art in those, in those pro formas. And that budget, depending on the size of the project, that can [00:30:00] be big. That could be $100,000 in some cases, sometimes more if it's a very large building. Most of that artwork would be bought by an interior designer, nothing wrong, at Pier 1 Imports, at IKEA. Nothing wrong with IKEA. I mean, I, I, you know, great c- great whatever.

But the art from there, is that making a difference? Is that having an impact? And how about that $100,000 and doing a call to artists in the community you are building? There is so much talent in this city or any of the cities that m- people may be building within, of artists who would be dying to try to get their artwork, one, commissioned, and two, put up in a building that can stay there for perpetuity.

So, that's what we did. We took every one of our art budgets, and we said, "We're gonna go to local artists in the communities that we're building. We'll do a call. We'll say we have 15 spaces to put this local art into the, into the building, and we'll put a little plaque with the person's name and recognizing what it is they're doing." [00:31:00] And it's a very small thing. It's a very small thing that can make an actual difference to someone else's life, uh, beyond just going to IKEA and buying stock print art, uh, from the Banksy website or whatever it might be. So, uh, you know, I would say, you know, m- you know, the be-all and end-all dollar is important in development and pro formas are important in development.

There are other things you can do to enhance who you are, your brand, do good while also making money and, and, and creating a business.

Payam: I love that answer. This, uh, specifically the last part. The, we have had our previous guests on this podcast have, uh, basically said that what we're doing is s- similar to putting art pieces into a museum that lasts a long time, and these are the buildings we're building. These are parts of the city we're developing, and each of them within themselves can ha- can have characters.

I know one of, uh, specifically one of our previous guests here, uh, Casa, in one of his projects or his only [00:32:00] project, uh, of that scale, he did exactly what you described, and he went to the school, local school. It's on Kingston Road and Main St- in Scarborough, and they ha- in the lobby of that building, which is a 68 unit, I wanna say, bu- purpose-built rental building.

They have all these arts from the local school, and, uh, it's all about green, uh, world and how green energy and helps. And it's, it's, it's actually an impressive scene when you walk through that lobby. It, it gives it, uh, character and life, and it's a pretty enjoyable thing to think about it. Uh, this, with this, I want to transition into some of your, uh, some of the corporate, uh, Daniels' more landmark projects, right?

You guys have worked on some very iconic projects from, I think Region Park, like you, you kinda touched on it, and you've done many others. I believe you guys have done, uh, a redevelopment on Square One, if I'm not wrong, and, uh, and other projects. How do, how does one go about [00:33:00] thinking about something like that?

How, like when you're thinking, developing, like it's a multi... I think in some cases it might become a multi-decade project. It's, it's a long process. It-- I'm sure you go through different people, through different authorities, through different area or, uh, sorry, different eras of industry evolution. Like there's a market's hot, market's not, and then different things.

How does one approach that? How do you plan for that? How do you think about it to make sure that by the time you're done, you're not 10 years behind? You're actually, hopefully, you're 10 years ahead when you're getting there. Any specific thoughts on that?

Jacob: Yeah, I think it's a, it- it's a real challenging one when you get involved in, in these long-term master planned communities. Um, and that's a number of the things that we have been involved in over a number of the years. You know, 20 acres, 25 acres around Square One, 30 acres in Brampton, and then 69 acres in Downtown Toronto i- in the Regent Park revitalization. [00:34:00] And maybe I'll just pause on that one in particular. I think the important thing around that, um, for us, had been staying consistent in terms of who we are and what we do, and what we can deliver. Um, y- you know, you said it, the politics can change and shift. Uh, leadership at various l- municipalities and levels of government can change and can shift, and that can change dynamics and, and, kind of send you off into different tangents. But I think the important thing is what is it that we wanna deliver and what are we trying to deliver in a specific community? And in the case of Regent Park, it was, it was very specific. It was bringing more rent geared to income housing and bringing a condo market along that could support the growth of both at the same time. And again, not wa- waving a magic wand here. We didn't do anything super specific. We were part of a market condominium boom that took place while that was happening that helped benefit being able to build, [00:35:00] building after building, repeat after repeat. But I think what is important to note through all of that is, yes, you still have to be thinking about what people need. What are people looking for? What are the size of the units that they want? What are the amenity spaces that they're gonna want exactly today, but also 10 years from now? And so being smart about curation of our spaces and our buildings, and thinking in the long term, whether it's a condo or it's a rental are the operations?

What are the maintenance costs gonna be for some of the features in some of these buildings, and will it be a burden on a condominium 10 years from now? Or is it something that, you know, it makes sense and it can work? I mean, we, we've gone away from... I'll give you one example in Regent Park. We've gone away from building pools in any of our buildings. We did that really specifically and intentionally, uh, probably 15 years ago in that location in particular because there was going to be the brand-new Pam McConnell Aquatic Center that was [00:36:00] being built right in the big park. And so, okay, why, why would we need to duplicate our efforts and create pools, cascading, you know, all the beautiful infinity stuff that you would do that look amazing in the renderings.

Don't get me wrong. They look incredible. But actually, functionally, from a maintenance perspective, and again, I'm not down on pools, I love pools, they're amazing, but does it truly make sense and is it needed for that building to sell that building? Or is the local amenities and the lo- what does the local space have that could help complement what it is that you're doing so you don't duplicate your efforts?

So, I think really being engaged in the communities in which you're building to understand what it is that those communities need. Sometimes it might be a library space. Sometimes it might be more common area workspace. Uh, sometimes it might be more athletic space, uh, that you wanna put in your building because that's lacking in that specific neighborhood. But going a little bit deeper into those spaces, those communities in which you're building and understanding and [00:37:00] talking to the people who live there already. That's not necessarily who you're gonna be selling to or renting to, but it's gonna be a general idea of who's going to be in the neighborhood that you're gonna be going after.

So, I think really important, uh, em- embed yourself, ingrain yourself in, in the, in the community as best you possibly can so that you truly understand what is gonna be going on in that neighborhood.

Payam: That's a very good point. I know recently I've had a couple meetings at City of Toronto with the planning department, and they are thinking ab- they're, they're basically rethinking some of the amenities with the very similar logic to what you just explained, that if you're building a building which is very well located and very close to certain, uh, walkable nearby amenities, you may not need to have so much square footage per unit inside your building, which no one will ever use.

That's, that's the, that's the part that unfortunately we've seen over the past 10 years or so, especially with the miniaturized guidelines, [00:38:00] that you end up building a whole bunch of amenities which rarely anyone uses because, to your point, they can stick, uh, uh, step outside the building and there's a pool or there's a cafe or there's a restaurant or, or in that part of the city, people don't really want to st- uh, to try and...

They basically wanna go outside and try the outside. So with, with that said, um, I wanna switch gears a little bit. Uh, when, when, when I was doing the research about you and the company, a big title that keep- kept coming up had to do with accessibility. You guys have done a lot of work about accessibility.

You've made publications about accessibility. And, uh, correct me if I'm wrong, I think it's, it's called Accessibility Design Standard. That is a document that you guys published. Why accessibility, and why is it, why was it so important to you guys?

Jacob: Yeah, I think, uh, you know, I touched on this a little bit in terms of my own personal journey, uh, and how I got into this, um, a- and how the company kind of got into it as well. You know, [00:39:00] as I mentioned before, Mitchell had co-op housing and affordable housing roots, uh, and wanted that to be his, his priority and the company's priority. Uh, I didn't necessarily, while I was navigating my way through the company and over the various years, know exactly what thing was gonna be. It could have been affordable housing, but I wasn't an affordable housing specialist or work in the co-op housing sector like him. Um, what I did get to experience was what I described at the Kilgore estate experience, and then a number of other buildings, which was, how do people live in their units, and what do they need in their units, um, that will make them more livable. And combine that with the fact that we worked a lot with a lot of seniors housing providers and seniors housing operators that were working with an aging population. so combine the two. Uh, yes, there will always be a home and a space for s- for seniors residences and, [00:40:00] and seniors accommodations. as the population continues to age, th- our thinking and our thought process was there's gonna continue to be a demand for more universally accessible housing that doesn't necessarily need to fall into a seniors housing bucket, or specifically a seniors housing residence. There... Like I said, there will always be a market for that, and we love that and think that's an amazing market, and it's gonna be one that will be booming over the next couple years as, as that continues to happen. But there is a world where- You know, people who are aging, my parents, uh, other people's parents in the 70 to 80 category, are going to be looking to not necessarily move into a residence, but wanna stay in a home or stay...

move to a condo that will make sense for them. So collecting data from a number of the buildings over the years as to the things that would be great to incorporate into a unit, right up front is how I got into [00:41:00] the accessible housing and our accessibly design standard. Collecting information from the various buildings over the years that I did, and then a lot of my colleagues started to follow as well on their buildings, and they said, "Jake, well, what if instead of two showers, what if we did a, you know, no shower... sorry, no tub, just a shower, so that if somebody eventually was in a wheelchair or a walker, they could easily roll into, in and out of that space? What if we did that for a second bathroom? Or what if somebody wants access to their balcony?" outdoor space, hugely important, but if there's a big step to go from inside to out onto the balcony, that would be pretty prohibitive for somebody who's in a wheelchair or somebody who has a walker or using a mobility device.

Very challenging. What if we designed up front a way to have a seamless transition from inside to outside? Okay, those are things that you can do. Those are things you can add to [00:42:00] your condo units, to your rental units, right at, right up front, and it's way easier to do that before, like I said, any bricks and mortar are put up, before the drywall's up, before the windows are in. If you're designing up front and incorporating... And we collected probably eight to ten of these specific items that were enhanced building standards better than building code. So again, that's the thing. We're following building code, but how do we make them more livable? do we ensure someone has the right turning radius within certain space so that they can maneuver within their bathroom, their bedroom, and their kitchen? Typically, that is just there's a certain segment of units that's allowed to do that. We're saying, what if we design it up front that it can be done in more units for more and better universal accessibility? So I really-- I got into it because of the, the information and the research that we, we g- we gleaned and we learned And then we just said, "Let's put it into practice. Uh, [00:43:00] let's install our own standards into the buildings going forward." Um, and we did that, and we were very proud of what we did, and we did it in a couple buildings in Regent Park, and then a couple buildings in Mississauga and in Brampton. then I got the experience of having to bring one of my friends who's in a, who's in a wheelchair, his name's Luke, and I said, "Luke, you gotta come look at what we've done.

It's amazing. You're gonna love the unit. It would be perfect for you. You'd, you'd be great." And he rolls in in his, in his wheelchair, and he does what he ... He says, "Jake, I'm gonna do a roll-through." And he does a roll-through, and as soon as he's in the lobby, he starts pointing things out. So to your point, he is an expert.

You were an expert when you were doing your PDI. He is an expert in terms of accessibility, and he said right off the bat, it wasn't green sticky tape, but it was is what's wrong with the lobby. There's not ... There's carpet transitions. There's not a great way to access the concierge reception desk 'cause my knees bang up against them. There's not [00:44:00] an automatic door opener in this location, even though it should be in this location. And so Luke was incredible to basically humble us and say, "Guys, amazing. Your units are fantastic. We love what you've done with those units. You gotta figure it out for from when I'm on the street to how I get through the building." And so we kind of were like, "Okay, we've gotta fix this." And so we went from dealing with the units to dealing with the entire amenity space and the entire building and overall path of travel so that we're developing buildings that are more universally accessible. And it could be someone who's in a wheelchair, absolutely, like Luke, but it also, uh, could be someone who's with a walker or a mother or father who's got a kid on their shoulders, and they're holding grocery bags, and they're trying to move around, and they don't wanna trip on a carpet that's this thick because it looks nice, and it makes sense for the interior designer. about the function. Think about how people use the spaces, and then implement that. And you can do so in [00:45:00] ways that won't feel institutional, that won't make it feel like a hospital. It's not gonna make it feel like a retirement home. And many of them are lovely and beautiful, but you can do it in really tactful ways and smart ways.

Um, and so incorporating that level of design is, is what we've really gotten into and, and try to promote that, uh, as much as we can across the industry. And that's why, again, we not trying to gatekeep the, the standards that we've created. We're encouraging others, uh, to participate, use them, try to incorporate them into their buildings.

Um, there's a great coalition that's been started called the Accelerating Accessibility Coalition, and they're an amazing resource that hold all of the information that we've given and others have now contributed over the last three years of its existence to try to, again, enhance universal design standards.

So that's where, uh, I would say my, my passion and my understanding of it came from, which kind of dovetails nicely with, uh, Mitchell and our [00:46:00] values and our company ethos of affordability and also accessibility kind of mesh well together.

Payam: I love that answer for some reason that might not necessarily be obvious, because what, what I'm listening to you for the past little while that we're talking, and we deal with on a daily basis with newer developers, w-with developers, uh, who are, um, much further behind, if you may, on the maturity chart or maturity spectrum of being a developer, right?

And, uh, but now we're talking with you as a representative of a company who's been around for more than two decades, has, has a very successful track record of delivering less than three PDI per unit units, which is a great bar. And, um, I love the fact that we are, like, for our audience as well here, that we're depicting, uh, how the maturity moves.

Like I'm, I'm just thinking in my mind, please [00:47:00] disagree with me if I'm wrong, but I'm thinking in the earlier stages of a company's evolution or growth, when you're building, you're basically more likely to try and survive. But when-- once you get to the stages that Daniels Corporation has had, it's not about surviving, which is a great thing, but it's also about fine-tuning and getting knee-deep into these very important items.

Like everything you just said is super important. I wish more... I, I guess this is my way of saying I wish more people can get to the stage of maturity as a company, as a portfolio, that they can pay more attention to what you just explained. Because, yeah, I, I-- as you were just talking, I'm thinking, yeah, like even in our buildings that we've done and we've done, we've tried to do a whole bunch of accessible pra-- best practices.

I'm sure there are issues. I'm sure there are issues that we haven't looked at it as closely. So that's, that's, uh, that's a great thing, and I think that's also something for people who are starting out and trying to put together a development [00:48:00] portfolio and building a company to aim for. That at some point in your journey, I would like to call it, that you get to a point that it's not just about more and bigger and bigger and more portfolio.

It's also about fine-tuning on more important stuff and getting to a better quality. It's, it's interesting how much of our conversation has revolved around customer feedback and client care. So I, I just wanted to point that out for, especially for our audience who have been listening to our previous podcasts as well.

Uh, with that said, aside from the accessibility, are there any other trends or movements in the industry that you're seeing that you say, "You know what? This is an interesting movement. I wonder where it's gonna go in the next five to 10 years. I'm very excited for it." Does anything come to mind?

Jacob: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we're, we're really interested in, in and have been for many, many years, but, but now even more so because of time is, is, is of the essence, low rise, stick-built housing, uh, low rise townhouse development and, and housing, [00:49:00] and looking for sites of a certain size and scale. And, uh, you know, I think likely gone are the days of the 70 story monster towers.

And, and again, it had its time and it had its place, and it may be it comes back, but I just think there's a reality to, uh, risk tolerances and risk thresholds, and there is a magic to a big developer or even a smaller developer or mid-size to be able to say, tying up a piece of land. Government bodies are allowing us to move a little bit quicker through that development approval process."

That's a good thing. That would be a win, cutting some of the red tape. We can design it and start construction quickly, and guess what? We can get through a construction build quickly as well. And I think it's really important, uh, and we are focusing on pieces of land that would be like that, pieces of land that we could either deliver, uh, for ourselves, for purpose-built rental [00:50:00] townhouse communities, or we're building for affordable townhouse communities for various regions that may need that. Um, but there's opportunities out there to be able to build stick, stick-built housing, townhouse housing, because there's a market for family housing. People talk about how do you build family housing? There's, there's spaces, there's pockets for that. It may not be in directly downtown Toronto, that's for sure, but on the outskirts, uh, in Durham, in Peel, um, in, in those regions in particular.

But I'm talking Brampton, I'm talking Mississauga, I'm talking Erin Mills, uh, I'm talking Ajax and Oshawa. Uh, talking about some of these other places around the GTA that are absolutely have opportunities that are right for that type of development because size and scale can matter, and it doesn't always have to be bigger and more density and grander.

It could actually be smaller, might be a little bit better, and make a lot more sense from a return perspective.

Payam: That's an interesting, that's an [00:51:00] interesting trend that you're seeing. Um, and I'm happy that you're talking about it and you think about it 'cause you are, you are right, we need more family-oriented and especially ground-oriented types of developments that, that works well for families. Um, I wanna try and start wrapping this up.

Uh, it's been very fun. If you were to talk to Jake or someone in Jake's position 20 years ago, starting out in new-- in a company, potentially a large company, and, um, you wanna expedite or fast-tracked, fast-track their learning curve, what are some advices you would give to that 20-something-year-old or 20-year-old who is just starting out and say, "You know what?

These are the things that you need to really learn that would help you fast-track your career"?

Jacob: Okay, so that's really interesting because m- my answer is probably gonna be counter to, to what the question is, which is patience. Patience. Development [00:52:00] requires patience, and, um, I actually think there's no shortcuts in, in development and construction. I think, um, can't fast track. You can, you can learn, and you can build, and use the learnings and the building blocks as a way to grow your knowledge base, as a way to grow your understanding of the business. Um, but what served me the best was simply showing up every single day, day in and day out, and putting in the time and understanding and learning what we did well and what we didn't do well. And again, be humbled by the fact that you're not gonna know everything, and you're going to make mistakes. And hopefully you have smarter people around you that help mitigate those mistakes and make them, you know, manageable, but it's okay to do that.

It's okay to try and push things. I think that's an important thing. Developers, construction, in, in its nature is about risk mitigation. [00:53:00] Uh, but there are ways you can manage that risk in certain controlled and ways. And if you're just starting out, think about how you can do that. And the way you can do that is, again, having people around you that have done it and been there before, and take some of that feedback, and take some of that advice, but also you're, you're okay to be creative and ke- and keep pushing.

So I mean, there's no shortcuts. That's the unfortunate parts of the answer. I really don't 

Payam: there's no shortcuts.

Jacob: Yeah.

Payam: and, and you, and you're right, like the, the ex- the amount of experience you get by going through a full cycle project, regardless of the scale. Even if you're doing a house, you're doing a, a three-story building, you're doing a 30-story building, a full cycle of that proj- project, the amount of learning that it will bring for someone, it's, in my mind, incomparable to anything you can get from books, TVs, TV shows, or like definitely not from HGTV or something like that.

Um, we have a traditional question on the podcast. [00:54:00] If you were-- If we were to give you a magic wand for the next five minutes, and you could make one wish to change a mindset, a paradigm, a rule, a principle, a, a guideline, whatever you want, with the aim of, uh, with the goal of improving our current situation as, as it pertains to housing affordability and overall market conditions for people, what would that be?

Jacob: I think the fundamental challenge is, uncertainty inc-inc-- uncertainty, instability, um, in the buyer's mindset, and that comes from many different reasons. That comes from, uh, politics, politics in Canada, politics down South, world geopolitics. it comes from, "Am I gonna have a job tomorrow?" And uncertainty around, you know, how you're, you're doing yourself in your own life. Um, [00:55:00] uncertainty around, you know, interest rates and where they're going and, and are they gonna shift so great that it's gonna, you know, stop me from being able to afford my home? I think if I could wave a wand, a-and it could just happen, uncertainty would get curbed. we would have a little bit more consistency on what to expect in some of these, those specific areas that are big macro issues that just lead to people w-- not wanting to be engaged or wanting to buy or wanting to even rent or transition because of all that uncertainty.

If we can fix some of that uncertainty, and it can kind of calm itself down, I think the market will rebound and come back. And I know that's not something that can very easily be done. Um, but with time, I believe that will start to happen, and we'll start to see that again

Payam: Amen. And that's why we have the magic wand. We just don't, we don't have regular wands, a magic wand. [00:56:00] Thank you, Jake. This has been great. Are there... Do you have any parting thoughts before we wrap this up?

Jacob: I've really enjoyed my time with you. Thank you very much. They were great questions

Payam: Thank you for being here, and, uh, hopefully we get to do round two of this in ne- in the near future. Thank you, Jake

Jacob: Thank you