Real Estate with Howard Drukarsh - Episode 310 featuring Hans Jain

<p>Howard chats with Hans Jain, President of Atria Development about growing up in a family business, the challenges of developing historical properties and using innovative technology to attract today's home buyers. </p><p>Few developers are driven by a desire to enhance quality of life for entire communities rather than exclusively for their customers. Hans Jain, Principal of Atria Development, is one such developer, a person who sees his role as extending well beyond the creation of desirable places to live, to one of leadership in improving communities that then attract additional investment, creating a more desirable place for all. Working together with his brother Vipin, he has built a development company that is truly community focused.</p><p> </p><p>Starting in his youth and continuing throughout his adult life, Hans has had a deep interest in economics, a course he pursued through his undergraduate years culminating in an Honours B.Sc. in Quantitative Methods in Economics. For a period, he pursued post-graduate work in the same field at the University of Toronto, but was eventually drawn to the idea of putting his learning to work by going into the family business.</p><p> </p><p>His father, Gyan Jain, had built a portfolio of old manufacturing and warehouse facilities in a formerly busy industrial area of Toronto that changing economic forces had driven into disuse and disrepair.</p><p> </p><p>While his father invested in improving and subdividing these spaces to accommodate smaller and newer businesses, Hans saw an opportunity to do more. He believed that by creating proper live/work lofts, he could bring people back into the neighbourhood as full-time residents and allow them to form the foundation of a more significant economic revitalization. I-Zone live/work lofts was a new idea in the market at the time, offering Torontonians an alternative to the many standard condominium units being built, with 104 authentic industrial loft spaces that were each unique and distinctly chic.</p><p> </p><p>