New Condo Project In Medicine Hat

Bernie welcomes Josh Remai President of Span West Building Corporation to the Porch to discuss an exciting new condominium project in Medicine Hat. They delve into the background of the company, the unique features of the condos, the sales process, and the community impact of the project. The conversation highlights the importance of modern construction technology and the potential for future developments in the area.

Transcript

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My sister actually lives in medicine. And so, when I travel around to different places, I always keep an eye out for communities I think would need housing and our specific type of housing. And, when I come to visit her on multiple occasions, I there was, you know, medicine that fit that bill. So I've been looking around the city for probably two years, you know, for an appropriate place to put a project, and, that's where we landed on which lands eventually. Here. Bring back the porch real estate edition, brought to you by Brittany. Trifle and Bernie Leahy. Let's get your home. Hey, everybody. We're, starting out today and our podcast on December 10th, and this is our first podcast, on a project that we're doing in ranch lands that is a very exciting project. And today we have with us the owner of Spann West Construction. Is that right? Josh? Yeah. Dallas Building Corporation is the official name, but, Spanish constructions easier to remember. Okay. It has a good sound. And Josh Ramey is here with us. He's in Saskatoon, and Josh is the owner of Spann West. And we're going to have many podcasts over the next couple of years, hopefully about the project. And the project is to 24 unit condominiums. And we're having information night at Reflections Reception Center behind Cooks Funeral Home on Monday evening

from 530 5: 1:49

00 to 7 to 730 or so. And Josh will be presenting and talking about, what he's going to provide us in medicine. And so, Josh, welcome. Just let us know a little bit about you and why you picked a great city like Medicine Hat to, to do this project. Yeah, sure. Well, my first question is, I don't have a presentation that's going to last two hours for me. If we start at five and go till 730. Oh, no. We got to. Reach. Okay. The streets do very good. All right. Excellent. That's great. So medicine hat? Yep. So I guess our company has been building, multifamily projects for the most part in Western Canada for my dad started company in 1984. And we built more than 140 projects over western Canada. And, my sister actually lives in medicine. And so, when I travel around to different places, I always keep an eye out for communities I think would need housing and our specific type of housing. And, when I come to visit her on multiple occasions, I there was, you know, medicine that fit that bill. So I've been looking around the city for probably two years, you know, for an appropriate place to put a project. And, that's where we landed, which eventually here. And so, I always enjoy coming to the city and spend time there, and I've been to the pool and the golf course and, all the things, of course, because my niece and nephew were there as well. And it's great. And, I'm really excited to be able to do the project in Medicine Hat, and I was able to reduce our out of town hotel budget for myself, because my sister said I could stay in her base. And all and all the guys that are going to build the place can stay at her basement. That's right. They've already asked if they can pull the trailer into her front yard, which she said she thought was okay, and the kids thought it was okay. But her husband has some reservations. Yeah, he's not going for that. Oh, yeah. So this project is quite exciting because in Medicine Hat, we haven't had a project like this. Condos for a long time, and we have condos that are up above where Ranchland is. But I think the last condo built there was, you know, maybe ten years ago. So, this is exciting for people. And I think we're going to see that people are going to want this, want to buy into this project. Yeah. We've had without even advertising. This is actually the first we put out some stuff on Monday in the paper and on Facebook. And we have we've had some pretty good response already. That's great. Yeah. I'm not surprised when I again, when I was doing my research, I think it's 2013, you know, I'm pretty sure over the last living some more than ten years ago, and, and lots has changed since, in the construction industry and technology and efficiencies and all those sorts of things in the last 12 years. So, this will be a project that has many things in it that are not available in other locations in Madison, not just because of the age of the buildings. That's one of the exciting parts. Josh and and with as I said to you before, we're going to we're going to do quite a few drone shots. And because you have some the way that you build it with, with respect to sound and, and things like that. So and I'm sure you'll talk about that on Monday, but yeah, there's a lot of good. And I did go up to Brooks about a year ago to Josh has a couple of buildings up there, and the quality of the of everything is great is top notch. So I mean, it's hard for people here to be able to kind of buy into it sometimes because it's not built yet, but there is an hour away. We could certainly go and have a look at at the quality, and I'm sure that's something that we could probably think about down the road. Yeah for sure. Yeah. You do a little tour. We only have one unit left there in the first phase. So it's limited on what we can do different types of units, but it certainly give you a feel for the quality and the finishing and all of that kind of stuff. Yeah. Now some of the, the, we'll talk about this on Monday for sure, but the there's no there's no age restriction in these units. Is that right. That's correct. Yeah. So this is, this is what I would consider an adult oriented building. The, amenities and the design of it, are going to lead most people to be an adult, but it does not have an actual legal age restriction in it. But from our experience, we're going to have the two ends of the spectrum here. You're going to have the people that are downsizing from their homes or looking to do some traveling in the winter months or whenever, and wanted more easy lifestyle, you know, so we're talking 50 and over likely and then, you know, we may get 1 or 2, young professionals. So a teacher, you know, that would like the security and safety again of the building. You know, sometimes a party officer that's moved to town, you know, is also looking for a simpler lifestyle. And that's the generally the two types that we end up in the building. So it does lend itself to be an adult oriented building. Right. And and there is on the main floor is the parking. And everybody would get one inside parking stall. That's right. If they wanted something outside, is there one one stall per per unit outside. The way we've got it. Yeah. So we've got it set up. So everybody's getting an inside. It's all, it's included in the price that you've got there on your on your price sheet. And the idea is we try to include everything. So, you know, all that parking and granite countertops and air conditioners and everything, you know, in the price as opposed to nickel and dime, everybody to death. So, you know, something to keep in mind. And then we do have a couple of other parking options. So on the site, you're going to get included your indoor heated spot. And then if you want to see inside outside with, like a car plug, you, you know, you can get one of those. And then we also have, a larger exterior garage. So there's about six units, six spots in the south side garage. And you know what typical scenario is? Couples going to move in, they get two cars. One of them's an f 350, and he needs, you know, he needs a little more. No more room for a second car. And so that's why we built that outside garage. Yeah. So there's, we can handle some subjects that would have done in the, underground parking. You know, that's not unreasonable. But if you got three of those, it's sometimes nice to have a second spot. Yeah, and there's six of those garages. Yeah. That's right. Yeah, as many as we could put on there. First come, first serve for the garages. Yeah. Okay. And then when somebody is interested in these condos they can excuse me. They can put down an initial deposit and then they can do their due diligence and make sure that they're happy with the condo bylaws and all of that stuff. And then once they're okay to carry on, then they would have, you know, they would fill out the big contract where they would sign on the dotted line and say, yes, I'm prepared to go with this. And then that deposit would increase to however much we select for the deposit. Or do we know about this deposit? Yeah. Yeah. You're bank on. Yeah, I can run through that. So, if you come to the information session and you're like, yeah, I'm pretty interested in this, we're going to look to you to give us a $5,000 refundable deposit, you know, and we'll then temporarily put your name on to host a vendor 405 or whatever you're kind of interested in. We'll have, the sales contract, the bylaws, all the different legal paperwork that you can go through, the floor plans. You can chat with our people here as far as, floor plan, layout and that kind of things. And then maybe about ten minutes later, you know, we're going to say, okay, well, you know, got to bring in the information or you or you, you know, up to you, and then basically at that point we're going to ask everybody who's and. Yeah, I'm I'm serious. I want to I want to carry on. I want to buy 2 or 7. Then we're looking for a 10% deposit. That deposit is still refundable until we've got the green light from the city. And the planners who actually go ahead and show, like, an actual performance. So if there's no reason that the project doesn't happen, you know, and we don't get a permit now, we should get a permit. It's a regular course, but it does take some time. Then, you would get your money back. And once we kind of get our permit, then we say, okay, this deposit now turns from a refundable deposit into a nonrefundable deposit. The project is going ahead. Shovels are in the ground, and that's actually all we need from people until they move in. So it's a fairly it's a decent sized deposit at the beginning. As I don't want people to leave me halfway through the project that but in the big picture of things, you know, we also don't need any more financing money until you actually move in. So there's not another round of of money we'll be looking for from people. So that's, a little bit different than how other people do it as well. And then we'll get from, your office will get some samples that will come to Medicine Hat. We'll have a place probably up in my office, where people can come and look at some samples of some cabinets and flooring and some other stuff as well. Yeah, yeah. So how we kind of work, that is. You're exactly right. We'll have some sample boards put together and I should have them for our meeting next week. And then included also in the purchase price of the home. It's like a meeting with an interior decorator on our staff. And so. Yeah. So we'll get Amy to meet up with everybody and go through the selections. And so I've got her. I've moved the boards, as I call them, to start from. And then people have a pretty good, choice of what their selections are. And Amy can be there to help as much or as little as he might like. So if you know what you want, great. Or you want to bounce ideas off of an actual trained designer, then then we have, that, as part of this. And from the time that you put a shovel in the ground to the time they move in is usually 14 to 18 months. Better not be 18. Okay. Yeah. So we're going to say 14. So let's call it 13 to 15. You know, something along those lines. But, but, you know, 14 is what we usually promise people. Okay. Yeah. And then on the, on the site as well, there's potentially going to be room for 12,000ft² of commercial, which would be, what we're working on now, which would be probably medical if it works out. So it, it would be nothing that would detract from the, from the property at all. So, but down the road would probably within six months. I think we can probably have some really good things put together there. Yeah, it could be a nice build out of that little area with a little strip mall against, the main street, which offers a little buffer as well. And then, the college got closer to, you know, the ribbon used. Oh, I think I think that works nicely. Yeah. Oh, it's a good project. So we're very excited about it. I wasn't really well prepared today because of course, I was out, you know, putting that sign up, getting yelled at by some very nice people. So it was actually pretty good that, people were excited to see the signs go up. And if we have time on Monday, we'll drive down there and, have a look at it. And we're excited about Monday night. We're, we're just working on the some of the stuff on how we can live stream it and, and so that people that are awake can see it and talk to us and send us messages. So yeah, this is our first podcast, many more to come and excited about, showing people the different construction methods that are going to be used, that we're not used in anything that we have in Medicine Hat. Now. Yeah, yeah, I really like talking about that. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And the, you know, the motion sensors on the, energy efficiency of the building and the boiler system and all of this technology that has come along, you know, that just makes for a comfortable, neat building. Oh, yeah. No, I didn't or anything. Yeah, I that's all really good stuff. And people will enjoy to hear about it. Join us for a meet the builder and info session at the Reflections Building at 937 13th Street Southwest on December 15th from 5 p.m.

to 7: 15:23

30 p.m..

Josh will make his presentation at 6: 15:25

00. Let us know if you're coming.