A cooling property market in Canada’s largest city is not holding back one of the country’s richest families from pushing ahead with $1.5 billion multi-condo development in Mississauga, Ontario.
Edward Rogers, Chairman of Rogers Communications, tells BNN Bloomberg that he is not worried about the impact that a softening real estate market might have on his family’s project, because he’s looking beyond the current property cycle.
“We’re looking at macro. We’re looking at the number of people across Canada moving to Mississauga and the Greater Toronto Area; the number of new great folks from around the world moving to Canada,” he said on Monday.
“The economy is strong, and interest rates are good, and I think those macro things will continue to foster investments and I think over the long term, it’s going to work out well.”
Rogers was at the groundbreaking ceremony for the eight-tower condo development known as M City, which is owned by Rogers Real Estate Development Limited - a private holding company controlled by the Rogers family.
The massive 15-acre project west of Toronto will take 10 to 12 years to be fully completed, but some condo towers will be finished as early as 2021.
Recent data has shown that the cooling effect taking place in the Greater Toronto Area’s housing market has spilled over into the condo segment, as well. Sales of new construction homes hit the lowest level in April in more than 20 years, according to the Building and Land Development Association.
But Rogers, whose father Ted Rogers bought the land in the 1960s, said his family had been wanting to develop the property for some time.
“Of course, you could sell the land, you could develop it, but we wanted to keep involved [for] the legacy piece of it,” he said.
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