The Construction Source

THE CONSTRUCTION SOURCE CANADA – where he was most satisfied. With his father’s assistance, he formed VineyardDevelopments in 2002. The company’s first development contract was a 35- unit townhouse development that was originally owned being developed by the First Lutheran church, in order to fund a neighboring church- school expansion. Craig’s father was part of the church’s building committee, and had even recommended the land, and when it came time to build and sell the townhouse development, he was put in charge. He brought Craig on board, and together they handled the whole process – from the layout and design, through to the pricing and marketing, all the way through to the sales and construction. “It was very much a sink or swim scenario,” Craig recalls. “If I was going to do it, I had to do it all. I had to prove that I could handle it.” Fortunately, that’s exactly what Craig did – he worked seven days a week for almost three years, selling on the weekends and building on the weekdays, and the project was a resounding success. “I knew I had found something that I was meant to do and that I was passionate about,” he says. Following that first successful project, Craig initially pursued other development opportunities, but market conditions such as the recession of 2008 forced him to switch gears and focus on building custom homes for clients. Fortunately, again, he proved just as capable in that arena, and Vineyard Developments quickly earned a reputation for their personal service and high quality homes. Roughly 19 years later, that reputation is now backed by a long list of industry awards, and an even longer list of glowing testimonials and client reviews. Craig credit’s the company’s many years of success to his dedication to his craft, as well as his passion for design: “Almost all of the products I’ve built I’ve personally designed alongside my clients,” he says. “Andwhen you design a product from the ground up with your clients on your own, there’s a certain level of commitment there – there’s something different that happens with builders, versus when a client brings them a set of plans that someone else has designed for them. It’s not quite the same. It’s a different level of emotion.” “I put so much love and attention into each design,” he adds. “And I want to execute them to the best of my abilities. I think that’s why I have been able to consistently deliver such a good product, and I feel the awards reflect that.” Delivering custom homes of Vineyard Developments’ calibre, however, is highly time-consuming. Craig recently decided to return to the company’s roots of multi-family development in order to free up some of that time, so he can better take advantage of all the lifestyle opportunities Kelowna has to offer. He still wants to deliver the same level of quality, and he still wants to contribute the same level of attention and detail, but he wants to do it at a larger scale. In fact, 450 Parc was specifically created to offer buyers a higher calibre of condominium than was previously available on the market. According to Craig, most condos in Kelowna are “solidly built and moderately priced.” He says there is definitely a market for those products, but that there is also another market that is being neglected. “There’s very little in the way of