by Bryan TuckeyThe GTA is home to some of the best building and development industry professionals in North America.The work of local members of the industry frequently receives national and international praise and recognition. In January 2017, several of our builders, developers, designers and marketers were recognized south of the border at the National Sales and Marketing Awards. Known as The Nationals, this annual competition honours the best in the industry across North America.BILD members have a long history of winning at the Nationals and this year our members received 44 silver and 10 gold awards in a range of building, design and marketing categories.One of the areas in which members did exceptionally well was in the architectural design of attached homes. Minto Communities received two silver awards for their work on two Toronto-based developments. One of them was Bside, a condo development at Bathurst and Front Streets, and the other for Long Branch, a collection of stacked townhomes in the city’s west end. The gold award in the Best Architectural Design of an Attached Home Plan category was presented to BILD member Brookfield Residential for a four-storey contemporary condominium project they are building in the U.S.Local developers Empire Communities and Tridel were each honoured with two gold awards. Empire won the Best Social Media Campaign and Best Computer Generated Sales Tool awards for Avalon, a community of townhomes and single-family detached homes in Caledonia. Meanwhile Tridel was recognized in the Best Print Ad Campaign and Best Brochure Lifestyle Magazine categories for SQ, a new condominium development in Toronto’s Queen West neighbourhood.Toronto-based marketing agency Montana Steele won the most trophies among BILD members, collecting 19 silver awards and two gold awards. Six of those silver awards were for Rodeo Drive, a condominium development in North York, which earned them a gold award in the Best Print Ad category.
Fred Losani, right, accepts the Building Industry Community Spirit Award.
A highlight at this year’s Nationals was the presentation of the prestigious Building Industry Community Spirit Award to Losani Homes for its work with the Losani Family Foundation. The annual award is presented to a builder-supported non-profit program or charity and is judged on its originality, concept and execution.Losani Homes is a builder from Stoney Creek that has been developing new communities in and around the Hamilton area since 1976. It formed the Losani Family Foundation in 2013 with the help of the Hamilton Community Foundation to help support Losani Homes’ various charity work. Since then the foundation has worked with a number of local charities and initiatives such as the Bruce Trail Expedition for Kids and the Toy and Turkey Drive.More recent efforts saw the Losani Family Foundation partner with Free the Children, a Thornhill-based charity helping impoverished children in developing countries. Last year the foundation took its efforts to Ecuador where several members of the Losani family helped build a classroom and a medical facility that will help service 12,000 people from surrounding villages deep within the Amazon jungle.Bryan Tuckey is president and CEO of the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD). He can be found on Twitter (twitter.com/bildgta), Facebook (facebook.com/bildgta) and BILD’s official online blog (bildblogs.ca).
