Real Estate with Howard Drukarsh - Episode 31 featuring Hans Jain

Real Estate with Howard Drukarsh

Howard chats with Hans Jain, President of Atria Development about growing up in a family business, the challenges of developing historical properties and using innovative technology to attract today's home buyers.

Few developers are driven by a desire to enhance quality of life for entire communities rather than exclusively for their customers. Hans Jain, Principal of Atria Development, is one such developer, a person who sees his role as extending well beyond the creation of desirable places to live, to one of leadership in improving communities that then attract additional investment, creating a more desirable place for all. Working together with his brother Vipin, he has built a development company that is truly community focused.

Starting in his youth and continuing throughout his adult life, Hans has had a deep interest in economics, a course he pursued through his undergraduate years culminating in an Honours B.Sc. in Quantitative Methods in Economics. For a period, he pursued post-graduate work in the same field at the University of Toronto, but was eventually drawn to the idea of putting his learning to work by going into the family business.

His father, Gyan Jain, had built a portfolio of old manufacturing and warehouse facilities in a formerly busy industrial area of Toronto that changing economic forces had driven into disuse and disrepair.

While his father invested in improving and subdividing these spaces to accommodate smaller and newer businesses, Hans saw an opportunity to do more. He believed that by creating proper live/work lofts, he could bring people back into the neighbourhood as full-time residents and allow them to form the foundation of a more significant economic revitalization. I-Zone live/work lofts was a new idea in the market at the time, offering Torontonians an alternative to the many standard condominium units being built, with 104 authentic industrial loft spaces that were each unique and distinctly chic.

The success of I-Zone validated Hans’ belief in the value of revitalizing older buildings to bring new life to neglected neighbourhoods. A second such project soon followed just across the street. Garment Factory Lofts offered 150 condominium live/work units with retail at grade in a converted industrial plant featuring new floors clad in glass in the heart of Leslieville that brought not only more residents to the community, it brought in substantial new development and economic activity. The project garnered significant media attention and awards.

Throughout this period, Hans built bridges to the community through participation in neighbourhood organizations and support for local charities. Creating these connections, he believes, is essential as it engenders goodwill, ensures that the development benefits the community and helps him understand how the development can best fit into the neighbourhood.

He brought that philosophy to Oshawa in 2007 where he had been asked by the city to give new life to an abandoned office tower in the core. He did so by converting the building into a 120 unit condominium, the first new residential development in the city’s downtown in more than 20 years. Since that success, Atria has invested further in Oshawa, building new rental projects including 100 Bond featuring 239 units and nominated for a BILD award for Best New Community Built.

As Atria has grown, Hans has built the company to become a vertically integrated organization that incorporates all aspects of development from land acquisition and planning, through design and construction, and onto marketing and property management. As a result, the company is able to more efficiently roll out projects.