Apartment debut a roaring hit

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This article was published 12/08/2015 (3717 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A high-profile Winnipeg automotive group’s first, and likely only, attempt at developing an apartment block has been an unqualified success.

Gauthier Automotive Group president Randy Gauthier said the company was told it likely would take at least a year to lease out all 90 of the one- and two-bedroom luxury apartments in its Lady Joyce Apartment Homes complex at 2390 McPhillips St.

Instead, 80 per cent of them were snapped up within less than a month-and-a-half of the complex opening in March, he said, and the rest within about three-and-a-half months.

And they have a waiting list of another 25 people who want a suite as soon as one becomes available, added his father — Gauthier Automotive Group chairman Jim Gauthier. “So we’re really happy with it,” the elder Gauthier added.

But while the company is happy with the way things worked out, it has no plans to tackle any more residential projects. “It’s not my expertise,” Jim Gauthier said. “It’s just that we had this piece of property left and it (building an apartment block) seemed like the right thing to do. But we don’t have a desire to become landlords or to build more apartment buildings.”

He said what the company would love to do is acquire more auto dealerships. “But that’s become very, very tough, as well,” he said, noting the bulk of the dealerships in the city already belong to an automotive group. And when one of the few remaining independents becomes available, they get snapped up by one of the larger auto groups, which is prepared to pay “top dollar” to get them, he added.

Gauthier believes one of the main reasons the project was so successful is there haven’t been any luxury rental apartments built in the north part of the city in recent years.

“Everybody who is building is building condos because they can get in and cash out right away,” he said. “So there was a real pent-up demand for top-notch rental apartments.”

And judging by how quickly these ones were leased out, there’s likely room for more, he added. The fact the new complex is close to the Seven Oaks General Hospital, a Walmart store and Garden City Shopping Centre also helped, he added.

“It was a great location for an apartment building… “

Gauthier said the Lady Joyce, which was designed by architect Ray Wan and built by Concord Projects Ltd., is named after his late wife, who died in 2013. The original plan was to call it the Corniche, which is the name of a popular model of a Rolls-Royce car. It’s also the name of a number of luxury apartment blocks in Florida. It was Randy who suggested they change it to Lady Joyce.

“We thought it would be a fantastic way to have her memory live on and to honour her,” Randy said.

murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca