Talk to us about JOIA as a concept?

We didn’t want to follow the conventional path like other developers and find a new name for every single building, so we put everything under the JOIA umbrella. Each location has its own unique edge that will embody the characteristics of the neighbourhood it’s in.

What examples of locations can we find a JOIA development?

JOIA Ville Marie – within easy walking distance of the Papineau metro station and just minutes from downtown Montreal, with its world-class shopping, museums and cultural attractions. The special element here is the panoramic views of the city and Jacques-Cartier Bridge, with its amazing changing lights at night, right from the comfort of your own home.

JOIA Laval – Ideally located in the heart of Laval, on the edge of Chomedey, close to restaurants and major shopping centres, our rental condos meet all expectations. All-new, intelligently designed apartments, each with its own balcony, gym and with access to warm and inviting shared spaces that allow you to live life to its fullest.

JOIA Griffintown in the heart of one of Montréal’s most popular neighbourhoods. Griffintown has rich Irish heritage, avant-garde new architecture, eclectic art galleries, hip bars and a dining scene that can’t be beat. Griffintown is also home to a beautiful National park that runs along Lachine Canal, and within walking distance to downtown. With a running track on the rooftop, and outstanding views of the city. We had murals painted by a renowned local artist where the artwork tells the story of the area of the city.

In each residential building, our furniture selection is top quality, “the kind I use in my own home” Michael says. “We always try to innovate. Andrea, my marketing manager, developed this concept where she’s going to the local markets, let’s say the bagel guy across the street that’s giving us either a discount or free bagels, we are promoting a sense of community. We are also working on providing people with a whole package service. We do movie nights, networking events on the roof, and invest smartly to be able to convey that “WOW” factor. It’s like a full package hotel that caters to the needs of the tenants. Even in Griffintown we give so much furniture- built ins like bookshelves and tables. We really go all out.”

What is your ongoing strategy with JOIA?

We want to continue to get amazing locations, like central park not mid downtown New York but in Quebec and keep expanding while providing top quality at same value or less and give people an amazing experience. We have people coming into the Majestic and telling us they feel like they are in Florida after selling their million-dollar property and actually buying a property in Florida because they are renting with us and now have two beautiful properties. We are literally changing peoples lives.

What has been the biggest challenge you had to face recently and how did you surmount it?

Definitely the pandemic. So instead of moving into the city, people have been moving to outskirts of the city. Furthermore, with people not wanting to come visit we had to improvise and invest in virtual tours. You could literally go to every one of our buildings and enjoy a virtual tour of our units on our website that we have to offer. But it’s not enough. Sometimes when people are spending money, they want to walk around, see, touch, and feel which makes absolute sense. This whole situation is not really helping us now while everything is calm. You asked what’s the challenge, but there is also benefits which is the fact that we finished construction, let’s say, two months ago. Today, if you wanted to start a project, you can’t get materials because there is a big disruption in the worldwide supply chain. The truth is there isn’t going to be much competition coming out which puts us in a very good position. To make things worse, all the projects that aren’t finished have seen their costs skyrocket which puts them over budget because of everything that Covid disrupted. We got very lucky I must say.

Are you working on projects outside of Montreal?

We do have a property in Laval, one in St Hyacinthe and a property in Trois-Rivieres which is going to be an incredible project. It’s going to be right on the Saint-Laurent River. We are going to call it “Cap-Sur-Le-Fleuve” with about 300 units. It was a nunnery, so the architecture and everything is spectacular. We must keep certain aspects of it untouched but there is so much room to expand. It’s something we’re going to develop in the near future.

Where do you see the brand in ten years?

We have a project that we will be building in NDG, Trois-Rivieres, and even the Maritimes. From the beginning, the mindset was to build bigger and better homes. We always think bigger and we look towards the future with structure and control.

Can you take us through your long term vision for the brand.

My brother and I are always on the go and I say this humbly. We invest in anything that make sense and in which we believe in like Bad Monkey popcorn, that we own a piece of, Voss water which we had the rights for Canada, and then sold. I like the feeling of creating something like a business and coming to the finish line and say we made something from nothing. Like I said, we are not scared of hard work, and we are always on the go, so when we complete something, we don’t stay too long to admire our achievements, we move on to the next project and that’s really our mindset and how we always crush our goals and find new opportunities. We really believe in diversifying.

With us the sky is the limit and that is what truly makes us so great at what we do.