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SECTION HSATURDAYOCTOBER 2, 2010thestar.comNew in Homes & Condos

INDIA STYLEColin and Justin are justwild about saffron, H2The best places to findSouth Asian inspiration,H12

A SPECIAL EDITION

india

Mansoor Kazerouni’s solid workethic was cemented at a young age.

Kazerouni, an executive vice pres-ident with Page + Steele/IBI GroupArchitects, grew up in Mumbai, theson of two doctors. His parentsowned a small private hospital thatwas attached to the family’s home.

“My father was a gynecologist, andit made things really easy when hehad to deliver babies at all hours ofthe night,” Kazerouni says. “He wasalways on call, and that work ethic isprobably the earliest lesson Ilearned in life. I saw that kind ofcommitment to a profession, whichI think I imbibed.”

Through a combination of hardwork, determination and talent,Kazerouni, 43, has in less than adecade risen to the top ranks atPage + Steele, beginning as an asso-ciate and eventually becoming apartner at the venerable Torontodesign firm.

In that time he’s helped createsome of the city’s most iconic struc-tures. As leader of Page + Steele’shospitality practice, he’s worked onthe new Ritz-Carlton and Four Sea-

sons hotel-condos, for example.He’s also leading the design of Del-

ta Hotel’s recently unveiled down-town flagship, Toronto’s first majorstandalone hotel tower in decades.

“I’ve been practicing architecturefor 20 years,” he says, “but I’ve prob-ably done 30 years of work in thattime.”

Born in Mumbai in 1967, Kazerou-ni studied at the city’s Academy ofArchitecture, then moved to theU.S. where he earned his master’sdegree from Washington Universi-ty in St. Louis. He graduated in theearly 1990s and took a temporaryposition with global architecturefirm HOK. But the U.S. was in themidst of a recession and job oppor-tunities were scarce.

By contrast, the Middle East was“booming,” Kazerouni says. “Therewere cranes everywhere on the ho-rizon.” He headed off to Abu Dhabiand got a job with Canadian archi-tectural firm NORR Ltd., and even-tually was relocated to Dubai to bepart of the team designing theEmirates Towers.

When his daughter was born in

Steely determination

AARON HARRIS FOR THE TORONTO STAR

Resolve and talent fueled Mansoor Kazerouni’srise to top of Page + Steele architects

Mansoor Kazerouni, top, is photographed in thesales centre for Pears on the Avenue. The new FourSeasons hotel and condos is one of Kazerouni’smasterpieces.ARCHITECT continued on H22

RYAN STARRSPECIAL TO THE STAR

Back in 2002, when Canderel Sto-neridge launched DNA, the firstphase of its condo cluster at Kingand Shaw, Riz Dhanji made a con-certed effort to reach out to theSouth Asian market.

Dhanji, the firm’s vice president ofsales and marketing, saw great op-portunity in targeting South Asians.They’re the largest ethnic popula-tion in the GTA and happen to havean affinity for real estate.

“South Asians have always under-stood the value of owning land, thehard asset of real estate,” he says.“It’s been passed down for genera-tions: Buy land, something with ahome on it, and keep that asset.”

Only problem was, South Asianbuyers have traditionally preferreddetached homes to highrises. SoDhanji set out to sell the communi-ty on condos.

He partnered with mybindi.com—which dubs itself the online desti-nation for “cool South Asian stuff”— and at the DNA sales centre orga-nized Toronto’s first-ever SouthAsian Home Show.

Four hundred people showed upto hear about the benefits of condoownership, and Canderel managedto get a few sales out of it. “Not asmany as I was expecting,” Dhanjisays, “but it was a starting point.”

In the ensuing years, he’s nurturedthe market and witnessed the GTA’sSouth Asian community, particu-larly the younger generation, gethip to condos.

They’ve been key to the success ofa pair of Canderel’s recentlylaunched projects: DNA3 and Aura,a 75-storey highrise at Yonge andCollege that will be Canada’s tallestand largest residential tower.

‘A cravingto ownbricks and sticks’

OWNERSHIP continued on H23

Condo developers,brokers clamour tocourt real estate-hungrySouth Asian marketRYAN STARRSPECIAL TO THE STAR

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HOMES & CONDOS

“We’ve seen the sales numbersfrom the South Asian communitygrow each year,” Dhanji says. “Themarket’s matured and it’s integralto the GTA highrise industry now.”

Canderel Stoneridge isn’t the onlyone courting South Asians. Acrossthe GTA developers and brokers arevying to corner the lucrative mar-ket, keen to tap this community ofsavvy investors with a fondness forreal estate.

“The South Asian market has beenthe new emerging trend in real es-tate investing in the GTA in the lastcouple of years,” says Debbie Cosic,a partner with In2ition Realty.

She should know. In2ition hasdone much to woo the community;a number of their west-end condoprojects, such as Parkside Villageand Holiday Towers, are aimed di-rectly at South Asians.

“The last big influx of immigrationinto the GTA has been from SouthAsia,” Cosic says. “They’re profes-sionals — educated and affluent —who arrive with a desire to own realestate, a craving to own bricks andsticks.”

What explains the craving?“Indians are generally drawn to

safe long-term investments,” saysMansoor Kazerouni, an executivevice president with Page + Steele/IBI Group Architects, who helpeddesign Pears on the Avenue nearYorkville and the new Ritz-Carltonhotel-condo. “If they weren’t in-vesting in land, they’d invest in goldbefore they would in the stock mar-ket.”

“It’s the tangibility of real estate,”adds Noorez Lalani, a developmentmanager with MOD Develop-ments, which partnered with Gray-wood Developments on FIVE Con-dos near Yonge and Bloor. “It’s theidea that you can see it, touch it, anddrive by it and say, ‘There’s some-thing I own.’ ”

For South Asians, the inclinationtoward real estate is also about tak-ing care of family. “There’s thiswhole thing of thinking about thesecond, third, fourth generations,”Lalani explains. “They want to holdon to the property, see it appreciate,and one day pass it on to their kids.”

The community has traditionallypreferred buying lowrise homes.Spurred by marketing initiativeslike the ones Dhanji has undertak-en, however, a younger generationof South Asians has begun gravitat-ing toward condos.

“They want to be in key urbancentres, be it downtown Mississau-ga or downtown Toronto,” Cosicsays. “They want to live in areas thatare accessible and have urban vi-brancy to them.”

But real estate remains a familyaffair. “The first generation is in-volved,” she says. “They may live ina large 4,000-square-foot single-family home in Mississauga orBrampton, but they’re buying two,three, four condo units for theirchildren as investments.”

“All three of my kids are in con-dos,” says Nick Nanji, CEO of CastleGroup Developments, the compa-ny behind Bellair Gardens nearYork Mills Rd. and the Don ValleyParkway.

“My kids would not like thishouse,” he adds, referring to his sin-gle-family home. “They’ve lookedat us slaving in the yard and theydon’t want to do all that. They havepremium time and they want toenjoy life and be in the thick of theaction.”

To sell One Valhalla, a 1,000-unitcondo project at the site of the oldValhalla Inn in Etobicoke that willinclude three towers and 68 town-homes, Eve Lewis zeroed in on theSouth Asian community.

Phase one of the project launchedin June and is nearly sold out — andthe majority of purchasers havebeen South Asian.

“I specifically targeted that niche,”says Lewis, president of MarketVi-sion Real Estate Corp. and founderof Urbanation, a research companythat tracks the GTA highrise condomarket.

Buoyed by the success, MarketVi-sion just started selling phase two.

“Much of the South Asian com-munity is from Brampton and Mis-sissauga, so the project was a fit forthem,” Lewis says. “They’re very fa-miliar with the west end of the cityand they have a lot of confidence inthe market.”

Cosic isn’t waiting for the South

Asian community to come to her. In2ition has taken real estate road

shows to Pakistan and India, settingup broker networks and establish-ing satellite sales offices in the Paki-stani cities of Karachi and Lahore,where they run parallel sales pro-grams for GTA developments.

“In the last year we’ve sold a cou-ple hundred condo units to thosemarketplaces, directly to people liv-ing there,” Cosic says.

In2ition targets “affluent peoplewith a sophisticated real estate acu-men,” she adds. “They understandmarkets around the world and theGTA is seen as one of the greatestreal estate investment opportuni-ties.

“They feel it’s stable and safe, andmany of them have family roots inthe area. They’re also purchasingand sending kids to school here.”

In2ition is courting the SouthAsian market back in the GTA, aswell.

Each fall Cosic’s team takes part inthe Diwali festival at the RogersCentre; this year they will be pro-moting the first condo in the Wood-bine Live! development, a project

she says has generated “enormousinterest” from the South Asiancommunity.

For DNA3, as he did with the pro-ject’s previous phases, Riz Dhanjiwent after the young South Asianmarket.

To create buzz for the project —which launched last weekend —Dhanji’s team attended an outdoorfair in Brampton over the summerand took part in the South Asian

arts festival Masala! Mehndi! Masti!“I think you need to be out in the

community and really understandthe community and how to ap-proach it,” he says. “Once you dothat there’s a lot of opportunitythere.”

Opportunity knocked at theDNA3 sales centre during the pro-ject’s launch last weekend. Dhanjireports it’s already 70 per cent soldand a “large portion” of those buy-

ers were South Asian.It’s the culmination of a market

evolution he helped spur nearly adecade ago.

“We’ve been trying to educatepeople on the benefits of condoownership, and it’s working,” hesays.

“The South Asian market is grow-ing rapidly and I think in the nextfive to 10 years there’s going to be ahuge explosion.”

A fondness for real estate

In2ition Realty’s Debbie Cosic, second from left, and partner Mira Tomljenovic, on her left, are photographedwith Sunny Patheja of In2ition, Susan Patheja, and Kishor Gajjar on their way to a Patheja family celebration.

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