The BMI Group is an award-winning transformative real estate development company based in Tillsonburg, Ontario. Over their history, they have evolved from a three-person enterprise selling potted plants into a development company responsible for bringing upwards of three million square feet of infrastructure back online and over 4,000 acres back into use. For over a decade, their focus has been reimagining, remediating, and redeveloping legacy properties in Ontario, transforming them into new and exciting industrial, commercial, residential, and hospitality opportunities. In recent years, BMI has had a big impact in the city of Stratford, redeveloping spaces while preserving the city’s unique built heritage. They see Stratford as “a modest city with everything to offer,” featuring “the best of both rich character and vibrant activity,” according to Hanna Domagala, director of land development and design. She says BMI’s goal is to emphasize and enhance those attributes with projects like the Bradshaw Lofts – a multi-award-winning adaptive re-use development, and upcoming projects like The Builders Block – a 361-residential plan that aims to conserve and convert the city’s shuttered seven-acre Krug factory property into a multiresidential neighbourhood. Originally, BMI’s vision was much more modest. The brothers Paul, Justus, and John Veldman founded their first company at the St. Jacobs Farmers Market. Equipped only with a truck and two wheelbarrows, they sold potted plants. That enterprise evolved into Courtland Professional Property Management, now one of Southwestern Ontario’s largest property management companies. The brothers Veldman discovered their passion for property revitalization by managing a property DECEMBER 2024
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