Welcome to JOIA, your new home.
JOIA is a real estate brand encompassing both lifestyle and commodity in a modern environment all over Montreal’s most prominent neighbourhoods. With sustainability at the forefront of everything they do, the Cons brothers decided to create places that felt like home, giving a turn key environment in each of their developments. What makes their concepts unique, is the upscale services and design in each of their residential locations ; from rooftop terraces, floor to ceiling windows, indoor lounges and fitness centres, the hotel-like experience will leave you in awe at its prestige and unparalleled luxury.
JOIA was founded by entrepreneurs Michael and Ronnie Cons, who began their entrepreneurial journey working for their family business. Established in 1974 by their father, Stanley Cons C&C Packing expanded from a local meat purveyor to become one of the industry’s fastest growing players with state-of-the-art facilities in Montreal, Quebec and regional sales offices throughout Canada. Following an acquisition deal in 2016, part of their business was sold to a public company “which left us with cash to invest in other ventures” Michael recalls. “We owned some properties that we were renting out, one of them – vacant – located in Griffintown. That’s when we decided to invest in real estate.”
Moving at a rapid pace and a bigger scale than the average is nothing uncommon for the Cons brothers and their amazing team. It’s no surprise that in just three and a half years, they have managed to build 800 doors and counting, on the island of Montreal and its surrounding areas.
Excellence is at the forefront of everything they do. That is JOIA.
Where did you develop your tenacity and entrepreneur spirit?
We grew up with this business-savviness. We’re not shy to work, we like to lead by example, we have a very low turnover of staff in our businesses. We keep our employees happy and understand their value. Hence why even in our food business that we’ve had for over forty seven years there is a very small turnover rate. We currently employ over 500 people in the company.
Why did you decide to develop rental properties instead of condos?
I have four kids, my brother has six and we basically figured that for the future it would be a good legacy for our families. You can always buy something and sell it to make a few dollars but for the most part, if you have rental properties in the family they can last forever. Furthermore, it’s a solid investment that sort of grows if handled properly, and the reason why we wanted new products in- stead of 20-, 30- or 40-year-old buildings is that it allowed us to have our hands on every detail like architecture and design. We wanted to provide new superior products for our tenants and we felt like we produce something of longstanding value.
JOIA Griffintown
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.”
JOIA Griffintown Rooftop
Majestic by JOIA
Our luxury concept, Majestic was something so unique it deserved its very own attention. We called it Majestic by JOIA. The idea behind this, was to keep a flow between both brands where they could complete one another. This way, if you as a parent sold your house and rented at Majestic, you would consider JOIA Griffintown for your child as an example. We wanted to create a brand people would love at every price point and age group. We wanted to create a whole experience in itself.
Can you tell us about the unique offerings at Majestic Montreal?
We focus on luxury and quality amenities. We have a coffee station with many different kinds of coffee made using only fresh milk. There’s a carwash downstairs, a beautiful rooftop, and in a central prime location. Majestic is a property by itself and anyone who visits it recognizes its magnificence. We sell a lifestyle.
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.
Photo Credits for all Images to : Matthieu Delarue Photography, Archimed Studio