GWL Realty Advisors (GWLRA) is entering the industrial strata market with a 120,486-square-foot, 14-unit speculative development called Leslie Link just north of Toronto in Richmond Hill.

“We identified a series of strategies where we thought there was an opportunity for our platform to provide different types of activities and services to clients, and this is one that we identified through the piece,” executive vice-president of portfolio management Steven Marino told RENX in an interview that also included director of development Nikola Parenta.

Strata ownership provides long-term cost stability, giving owners greater control over operating expenses and enabling them to build equity over time from capital appreciation and long-term value creation.

The industrial condominium model is more common in Metro Vancouver than the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), so GWLRA considered launching its first project on the west coast before opting to go with the Richmond Hill site.

“There's been a series of transactions occurring over the last four to five years and it’s certainly an asset class that's emerging” in the GTA, Marino said.

What Leslie Link offers

Leslie Link will be built at 9609 Leslie St. on a 6.4-acre parcel acquired in 2021 as part of a larger 44.7-acre purchase. It’s part of the Headford Business Park, which Parenta said is a primary employment centre for Richmond Hill.

“It will be a great entry point into the park and hopefully complement both the park itself and the individual operators at the project,” he said. “We're situated on one of the only remaining employment land parcels in that hub.

“It benefits from strong labour and transit connectivity,” which includes York Region Transit bus service at the corner of the site.

A Highway 404 overpass is under construction that will connect the existing intersections of Leslie Street and Orlando Avenue in Richmond Hill to Woodbine Avenue and Markland Street in Markham and improve accessibility to the site.

The facility will offer:

• a 32-foot clear height;
• unit footprints ranging from 8,228 to 10,623 square feet;
• truck-level and drive-in doors for each unit;
• high-load floor capacity;
• 200 amps of power per unit;
• an early suppression, fast-response sprinkler system;
• a fixtured washroom in each unit;
• high-efficiency lighting and recirculation fans;
• signage exposure along Leslie Street; plus  
• parking and room for trucks to manoeuvre.

Building Leslie Link on spec

“We are building this on spec as a testament to our level of confidence and conviction and the quality of the site and the quality of the opportunity in the marketplace,” Marino said.

Construction and occupancy timelines are fluid at this point. Marino noted smaller industrial buildings have a relatively short delivery window “that allow you to have more visibility to the conditions in which you're going to be delivering and selling a facility.

“It gives us the condition to move forward on a speculative basis, relative to some other asset classes where speculative development may be a little less easy to rationalize.” 

Cushman & Wakefield is marketing Leslie Link and Marino said two units are already close to being sold.

“A lot of these industrial strata locations are in the 2,000- to 3,000-square-foot range or they're 13,000 to 15,000 square feet,” Parenta said. “Our unit size targets the segment of 10,000-square-foot units where there's a lack of new-generation space.” 

Parenta expects some purchasers to combine units.

Other GWLRA industrial activity

GWLRA severed 21 acres from the 44.7-acre parcel it acquired in 2021 and sold it to an owner-operator that plans to build its own facility on the property. 

The company is evaluating opportunities for what to do with the remaining 14 acres. Marino said there’s strong interest from owner-operators to acquire it, but GWLRA could also develop its own industrial product there.

Elsewhere, GWLRA is assessing a couple of land parcels in Western Canada where it has optionality and flexibility, and industrial strata development is one of those options.

“We are attracted to industrial as a core bit of our strategy because of its resilience and enduring cash flow features and characteristics,” Marino said. “In the same breath, we want to have the ability to be adaptive to market conditions where we think we can create outsized performance for clients.”

GWLRA and its partner Enright Capital are building a 605,000-square-foot warehouse in Balzac, just outside Calgary, for Canadian retail chain Princess Auto. The facility forms the first phase of Stoney North Logistics Centre, which will feature more than two million square feet of warehouse space across 118 acres.

GWLRA managed 242 properties encompassing 51.5 million square feet and valued at $18 billion on behalf of its clients at the end of 2025. More than 30 per cent of that was invested in the industrial sector.

“That certainly makes us one of Canada's most active real estate investors and, by virtue of that, we get a lot of inbound on potential investment opportunities,” Marino explained. “We also have the discipline to look to rotate assets out of our portfolio once we've executed our business plan. 

“Like every good investor, we fancy ourselves to be active both on the buy side and sell side and we think the two sets of activities really complement one another, and also help to make us better developers.”