When Kent Sillars started Vesta Properties at age 24, he never envisioned his development company would be providing jobs for hundreds of people at a time and building one of the largest single neighbourhood developments in Langley’s history.
“We have a lot of stuff on the go,” Sillars, now 57, admitted. “We have the largest community in the Fraser Valley being built in Latimer Village. It’s 75 acres of stuff… We’ve never had that size of a project [before] in town.”
Sillars is the president and founder of Vesta, a company currently located out of North Langley, which will – in the near future – move into one of the seven-storey office buildings he’s currently constructing as part of the new Latimer neighbourhood.
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This new inclusive neighbourhood project, underway in north Willoughby, features six types of home options – from the six-storey condos currently going up along 200th Street, to the various single-family homes, townhouses, rowhomes underway or on the books in the large neighbourhood plan.
“The response has been actually, overwhelming, because we’re so visible and by far the largest project in the history of the [Township],” Sillars said.
“It’s over a billion dollar sales value in all seven phases – the seventh phase will be the first two towers,” he added, explaining plans for a 26- and 34-storey tower still to come.
“Langley has never had towers, so we’ll be the ‘Canuc-knuckle heads’ who build the first towers,” he said, noting in past tower development wasn’t economically viable in town. But he’s convinced it is now, and expects construction to start on those next March.
The overall project has garnered the Langley entrepreneur and his firm a lot of attention and a variety of nominations for homebuilding awards – the first being announced tonight with the Canadian Homebuilders’ Association Georgie Awards for B.C.
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Vesta Properties is up for a variety of individual awards in Saturday night’s Georgie Awards, shortlisted for everything from design of their display suite to best multi-family kitchen.
But what has Sillars sitting on the edge of his seat is the fact his company is up for two of the more elite Grand Georgie Awards – both for single-family and multi-family home builder of the year.
The company has been runner up for a Grand Georgie four times in past, but has never won. He’s holding out hope that will all change this weekend.
Here it is, the link to this Saturday’s Georgie Awards virtual gala beginning at 6:00PM. Open to everyone and no need to register, this link is all you need: https://t.co/a8WUJhffwb pic.twitter.com/PFzPKzAGvD
— Georgie Awards® (@georgieawards) March 17, 2021
“It’s frustrating. We’re hoping we can pull it off this year. On Saturday night, we’ll find out… we have a chance to do some damage on the awards,” he added with a chuckle. “It’s a pretty big project, so it’s good to get some recognition for our staff, our trades, our consultants. There’s probably 400 people working on Latimer Village.”
Further accolades:
Planning to sign in for the online Georgie presentations Saturday, he said “I think it would be unusual if we didn’t win something, but who knows… I don’t think there’s been a single year we didn’t win something. But… we want to win… one of the Grand Georgies, there’s not very many of them, and that’s really hard to do.”
While the majority of the accolades befalling Vesta are for the Latimer Village project this year, he expects the Brookswood Mills single-family development at 204th Street and 28th Avenue in Fernridge – along with Latimer – will be recognized next year.
In the meantime, the firm is also up for 10 awards from the Homebuilders Association Vancouver.
Winners won’t be known until the end of April, but several Langley builders – including Vesta – have been confirmed finalists in the latest HAVAN housing excellence awards competition.
Late last week, the Homebuilders Association Vancouver unveiled a list of some 80 developers, construction firms, and designers up for recognition in the 12th annual industry awards.
OTHER AWARD CONTENDERS
That list featured local companies in many of the 56 awards categories, including Lindan Homes Ltd., a custom builder that’s a finalist in two categories (best custom home $1.5-$2 million, and best new space) for their Take Me to Church project in Fort Langley. Lindan is also up for a few Georgie’s on Saturday.
Four local multi-family builders are also shortlisted. That includes Hayer Builders Group, which is up for best townhouse/rowhouse development for a project called Frame.
Infinity Properties Ltd. is in the running in seven HAVAN categories, including two grand awards, for their Wilder Crossing project. Similarily, they’re on the shortlist for at least two Georgies this weekend (best display suite design, marketing campaign, landscape, sales centre, multi-family kitchen, multi-family townhouse development and enivronmental initiative).
The other categories include best townhouse/rowhome development, best outdoor living space, best multi-family amenity space, best interior design display suite, best marketing campaign, best multi-family residential community, and multi-family home builder of the year.
Island of Mann Property Group is a finalist in three categories for two properties.
It is in the running for best townhouse/rowhome (fewer than 1,800 square feet) for Luxia, and contenders for best townhouse/rowhome (more than 1,800 square feet), plus best townhouse/rowhome development for the Evergreen project. This company is also up for a customer satisfaction award through the Georgie Awards.
Surrey’s Zenterra Developments is the fourth multi-family contender for a HAVAN award. It’s a finalist in the best townhouse/rowhome development, for the Fraser project in Murrayville, and up for best marketing campaign for its work on Central, also in Murrayville. The third award nomination is for multi-family home builder of the year. At the provincial level, Zenterra is also up for excellence in housing affordability.
Dominating primarily in the single-family builder categories for HAVAN, Vesta Properties is up for a total of 10 nominations, including two HAVAN grand awards, and they’re all for the Latimer project.
The company is a contender in the best single-family detached home (fewer than and more than 2,400 square feet); the best single-family detached home development (of more than 10 units); plus best interior design for display home for its A-plan duplex, The Stafford, and The Wellington single-family projects.
Congratulations to the 2021 #HAVANawards finalists!
— BCIT SoCE (@BCITSoCE) March 18, 2021
BCIT School of Construction and the Environment is proud to be a supporting sponsor.
Take a look at the incredible homes: https://t.co/BUuKv1ASoe and watch the awards live on Friday, April 30!@HavanOfficial #construction pic.twitter.com/YLCFQRkwSH
Vesta is also in contention in the best townhouse/rowhome unit categories (both more than 1,800 square feet) for the C and D plans for rowhomes at Latimer Village.
And in the HAVAN grand prize categories, Vesta in the running for best single-family residential community and single-family home builder of the year awards.
Spotlighting the best new-home construction, renovation, and design projects in Metro Vancouver, the awards showcase what HAVAN CEO Ron Rapp describes as “breathtaking” custom-built homes, laneway homes, whole home, townhome, and condo renovations, single- and multi-family developments, outdoor spaces, and the latest in high-performance building technology, plus innovation to maximize the land built on with affordable housing solutions.
• Stay tuned for local results from this weekend’s Georgie Awards
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