Kathy Black is the Vice President of Development for Fiera Real Estate and is our guest on today’s show. She has seventeen years of experience in this field, fully overseeing thirty projects with a total value of over two billion dollars.

We begin by hearing about how Kathy and Fiera are coping with the COVID-19 pandemic before we go through some projects that are still ongoing. Kathy talks about industrial condos and some of the intricacies around them as well as traits that make a municipality pleasurable to work with.

Topics covered include:

• The three different development funds that Kathy manages.
• Challenges that Fiera is facing with COVID-19.
• Different regulations for residential and commercial sites.
• Providing staff with options to work from home.
• Mitigating negative impacts from the pandemic.
• What development looks like now in various GTA municipalities.
• Current projects that Fiera is involved with.
• Buying condos as an investment property.
• The type of condo that is the most complicated to work with.
• Characteristics of a municipality that makes it attractive for developers.
• Working cooperatively with municipalities to move projects forward.
• Anticipated rental rate in a non-downtown location.
• Bouncing back from COVID-19.

Listen to Evolution in Building Design with Jonathan King of BNC Architects. 

More about our guest:

As Vice President, Development, Kathy is responsible for the investment activities of Fiera Real Estate Funds in the Province of Ontario and Western Canada.

In addition to contributing to prospecting new potential partners, she analyzes investment opportunities and leads, due diligence activities, and collaborates closely with internal and external stakeholders.

Kathy has over 17 years of experience in the real estate industry, focusing on real estate developments of various asset classes. She has overseen projects totaling more than $2.0 billion for a combined 10,000 residential units with areas of expertise in municipal approval processes, development and project management.