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Lifestyle elevated
Elevate Living is a Niagara-based homebuilder and developer inspired by ‘New Urbanism’ – a planning and development approach based on the principles of walkable blocks and streets, housing and shopping in close proximity, and accessible public spaces. For more than 15 years, company founder Drew Toth has been deeply involved with providing local housing in accordance with those principles. In his early days, he worked as an advocate for housing for vulnerable citizens. As the leader of Elevate Living, he’s been involved in modifying existing residences to include secondary units, building new townhomes, condos, multi-unit dwellings and single family homes, and developing new neighbourhoods throughout the Niagara region.
Over the years, all of Elevate Living’s activities have been based around the goal of “meeting the needs of our community through real estate,” Drew says.
In Niagara, one of the community’s biggest needs is more housing. That’s a need shared by all communities in Ontario, as according to the Ontario Housing Affordability Task Force, the province must build 1.5 million new homes within the next decade to accommodate their growing population.
“Of course, meeting this requirement without erasing or replacing the fabric of our existing communities requires a thoughtful approach to development,” Drew explains.
Elevate Living seeks to provide that thoughtful approach. According to Drew and the principles of New Urbanism, that means creating mixed-use and residential developments within existing neighborhoods to allow for greater density, character, and walkability. It means implementing development designs and characteristics that reduce the need for vehicles wherever possible; creating a variety of housing and living options will help more people from different age groups, genders, family sizes and living situations; designing landscapes that provide canopies and clean air; and incorporating neighborhood features that prioritize community and lifestyle.
Additionally, Drew says, thoughtful development also means fostering public-private partners wherever possible in order to “enhance the quality of life of future residents.”
“Our communities shouldn’t have to compromise lifestyle just to call a place home,” he says. “Instead, we believe in ‘elevating’ our clients’ lifestyles through our New Urbanist approach to building and development.”
Elevate Living first started with a single duplex, which Drew purchased and renovated about 15 years ago. From that experience, Drew gained a passion for construction and real estate investment. The company started working with investors, they started purchasing and renovating more houses, then they started renovating apartment buildings. Eventually, they became a Tarion-licensed builder and started doing small infill developments of their own. They now have a full in-house development team, as well as number of strong and long-lasting relationships with external general contractors and trade partners.
Today, Elevate Living focuses on developing and building a variety of different housing types, with a focus on compact real estate development, purpose-built rental apartments, and new home buildings with accessory units. According to Drew, that diversity of housing forms is very purposeful:
“We don’t just want to build million dollar homes,” he says. “We want to have a variety of housing forms and types within our developments. We want some apartment rentals, some condos, some stacked townhouses, some townhouses, some smaller unit. Our goal is to provide housing to a mixed demographic. We also want to start filling in some of the missing middle housing that’s so desperately needed.”
No matter the typology, however, Drew believes all developments by Elevate Living stand apart for the same few reasons. One of the main reasons is they all take place in thoughtfully-considered communities that all share the same key qualities and values – e.g., they are walkable; they contain multiple housing forms, including some form of attainable housing; and they were designed and planned with a strategy for reducing carbon emissions.
On the carbon emission front, Drew says a big part of that is the walkability and bike-ability of their communities, which mitigates the necessity of using cars to get around. In addition, Elevate Living is also implementing electric car share, electric scooter share, and electric bike share services in all of their developments moving forward.
One more thing that Elevate Living does in regards to energy efficiency and carbon emission reduction is they carefully consider the materials they use and the building techniques they deploy. That consideration is resulted in apartments that are all at least 25 per cent more efficient than the national building code dictates. Elevate Living also recently became a Net Zero-certified builder and they are finishing their first Net Zero build now.
A related element that all Elevate Living communities have in common is the emphasis they place on landscaping and greenery. Drew emphasizes that company takes pride in always implementing “a very elaborate landscape plan.”
“What I mean by that is the amount of trees and the amount of flora and fauna that we introduce into our developments is very important to us,” he explains. “We go and above the minimum requirements. We especially like to include Carolinian and native plant species – and that’s very important, because there are only about 30 per cent of Ontario’s Carolinian forests left so we aim to replenish them in an urban settings wherever possible.”
Another point of difference that unifies all Elevate Living developments is the company’s “architectural design guideline.” Unlike a lot of developers, Elevate Living has very specific ‘do’s’ and ‘don’ts’ that relate to design elements such as what materials can be used, where the fenestration is, how the building must be oriented, et cetera. For example, on a corner lot, they mandate that both sides of the house have to be expressed to the street as if they were the front of the house. Those design guidelines ensure consistency of quality among all buildings by Elevate Living.
Those guidelines also ensure the durability and longevity of the company’s buildings, as they mandate the use of materials that are long-lasting. Drew acknowledges that those materials are typically more expansive – “a good product you have to pay more for,” Drew concedes, “but what we’ve done is we’ve looked at every aspect of the design, and we’ve made key decisions about where and how to spend our money.”
“We’re always thinking about how our choices impact the economic lifespan of our projects,” he says. “We want to make sure that what we’re building, we’re building for the next 100 years.”
Lastly, yet one more overarching point of difference is Elevate Living’s commitment to community engagement. On all infill developments, they conduct a very specific public engagement program within the existing neighborhoods. That way, they can make sure their developments will integrate successfully and seamlessly within the broader community context.
Top notch quality
In recent years, Elevate Living has built a very strong reputation in their local region for the quality and durability of their builds. Drew credits that reputation to the way they invest in quality control throughout the duration of a build. For example, he says they conduct thorough inspections after all key stages of construction. Those inspections are conducted not just by the company’s interior team, but also by the general contractor, and they’ll even usually invite a third party inspection or testing company to the site just to provide one extra layer of assurance.
“So there are almost always three inspections after every stage of building,” Drew explains. “The reason we do that is it ensures a higher level of quality. It ensures things don’t get missed. You know, construction is very busy. We have multiple people coming in and out of our sites almost every day. We have material coming in and out all the time. It’s easy for things to get missed – but our three-tier inspection system ensures that doesn’t happen.”
Drew also credits the quality control to the company’s aforementioned longstanding relationships with general contractors as well as subcontractors and trades. He says most of those relationships go back over a decade:
“We have long-term relationships, and that matters a lot,” he says. “As anyone in construction knows, starting new relationships is tough. If you haven’t worked with a trade before, you just don’t know how it’s going to go. But when you have long-term relationships with folks who have proven themselves, you know what to expect. You know the type of quality you’re going to get.”
Looking forward, Elevate Living’s goal is to maintain their long-term relationships with contractors and trades, and thus maintain their quality certainty.
The company’s goal is also to do increasingly sustainable projects. As previously mentioned, they are finishing their first Net Zero build now. That project is a 28-unit, three-storey wood building in St. Catharines. Features include triple-glazed windows sourced from Germany and Hardie board commercial exterior siding – “which is quite an expensive product but the look of it and the quality of it is top notch,” Drew says.
In addition, that project will also implement some of the carbon-reduction strategies that were previously outlined – i.e., it’s going to have a Tesla Model 3 car share program, an electric bike share program, and electric scooter share program. It’s also going to be fully SmartONE technology integrated. In line with Elevate Living’s mission to cater to a mixed demographic, it will also include some affordable units – Drew says they are “very excited” to provide those affordable units to the market, and their goal moving forward will be to proud even more of them.
Lastly, Drew brings up the Elevate Living Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), which they launched last year. With that trust, they are offering investors the chance to invest in their projects, contribute to the development of much needed housing supply in Ontario, while also receiving attractive returns.
“That fund is a key initiative that is going to help us grow and move into the future,” Drew concludes. “So we are definitely poised for growth – we’re poised to increase the amount of development sites we have and we’re also poised to increase our amount of units under construction. It’s an exciting time for Elevate Living.”
For more on Elevate Living, their development philosophy, the communities in which they work, and their past and present projects – and to get in touch with Drew and his expert team – visit https://elevateliving.ca/
And for more on the Elevate Living REIT and how you can get involved, visit https://elevatelivingreit.ca/
