NOVEMBER 2024 new-and-improved processes on that project, their goal is to develop similar multi-family projects all over Canada. “We want to be focused on town homes, specifically,” Stanford explains. “We want to focus on the town home market because it is sophisticated, and it takes a lot of experience to do it in scale. We have that experience and we want to put it to good use.” Stanford didn’t start off his career with that laser focus on town home development and building. When he founded Admiral Development and Operations in 2017 with his wife and Partner, Yvonne Siu, his original intention was to develop and build a variety of residential projects, including some single-family custom homes and some multi-family projects. Initially, he envisioned the company acting as a developer on the multifamily side and a builder on the single-family side. However, that vision evolved as he realized the downsides of working with third party builders. “We had multiple rounds of failure while working with third parties,” he recalls. The reasons included: not following the contract; not doing the actual work required to minimize construction cost risk; not providing critical information in a timely manner, which he says “turns small problems into big problems;” constant changeover of managers and coordinators; and low levels of accountability and responsibility. “I got very good at ‘cleaning up’ and ‘transitioning’ from one GC to another GC,” he explains. “Eventually, I was managing trades, dealing with schedules, verifying information and simply
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