A succession plan for Jeremy Reeds to move into Windmill Development Group founder Jonathan Westeinde’s CEO role has been in the works for several years, so a smooth transition is expected as the company moves forward.

Reeds previously served as Windmill’s president. Westeinde will remain involved as executive chair of the company's board.

Reeds has moved steadily up the ladder at Windmill since joining as director of finance in December 2019. He had spent more than seven years in various positions with The Minto Group, and almost three years before that as a senior accountant at KPMG, before arriving at Windmill.

“I have a lot of appreciation for the time that I spent at KPMG and Minto,” Reeds told RENX. “They're both very large organizations, with KPMG being a leader in accounting practice around the world and Minto being a very significant developer and property manager across Canada and the U.S.” 

Changing responsibilities

Reeds said the skill sets and expertise he gained in those environments have been “fundamental in our continued growth and strategic positioning as we've evolved” at Windmill, which Westeinde founded in 2003.

“Jon's really out of the day-to-day and I'm fully accountable for the execution and operation of the company,” Reeds said of the new structure. “Jon's obviously still involved from a strategic standpoint and how we position ourselves for the long term.”

Since the transition had been in the works and Windmill employees were well aware of the ongoing process, no one internally was caught by surprise by the April 22 announcement. Reeds said everyone is prepared to take this next step in the company’s evolution.

“Historically speaking, Windmill has been a leader in innovation and modern methods of construction, with everything from our sustainability practices to our financial solutions around different components like geothermal,” Reeds noted.

The company has offices in Toronto and Ottawa.

Nesting Ground partnership

One of Windmill’s priorities over the past few years has been its partnership with Nesting Ground, a Canadian non-profit real estate developer focused on delivering sustainable, mixed-income affordable housing at scale through partnerships with governments, community housing providers and private capital. 

Nesting Ground is active in Ottawa, Toronto and Guelph, Ont. and has a pipeline of more than 2,000 units (with over 35 per cent of them being affordable) across projects that are ready to activate in 2026. 

Windmill is Nesting Ground's development manager partner and ensures that zero-carbon design is applied to all projects.

“We're really proud to continue to offer our skill set and expertise – with everything from an innovative, modern method of construction on the sustainability side of things to our financial acumen to support a non-profit to continue to see acceleration of affordable housing delivery in Canada,” Reeds said.

Hälsa

Hälsa, at 230 Royal York Rd. in Toronto, will be Ontario’s tallest pre-fabricated mass timber residential building when it’s completed and ready for occupancy in July. The LWPAC-designed, nine-storey, 58-unit purpose-built rental apartment is being developed in partnership with Leader Lane Developments.

Another partner in the project is Delta, B.C.-based Intelligent City, a leader in pre-fabricated urban housing, green building strategies, digital design, manufacturing and robotics in timber construction. It manufactured, shipped and installed 103 envelope panels, 19 parapets, 105 floor cassettes and 229 columns for Hälsa.

“It's delivered everything we could hope for and more in its ability to prove how fast on-site assembly can be,” Reeds said. “We're supporting them in a lot of ways to help them get their Ontario facility set up.” 

Kennedy Green

Ground was broken late last year for Kennedy Green, a partnership involving Civic Developments and the non-profit Co-operative Housing Federation of Toronto at 2444 Eglinton Ave. E. It’s Canada's largest co-op housing development in more than 30 years and the first private-led rezoning of a City of Toronto Housing Now site.

The 2.88-acre site across from the Kennedy subway station will have three Henriquez Partners Architects-designed towers with approximately 918 units upon completion, which is expected in 2028. 

Two-thirds of the units will be rent-geared-to-income, affordable and market rental co-op housing, which will be operated by the co-op.

Future Windmill projects

Future Windmill projects listed on its website include:

• The Baker District, which will deliver a new central library, two urban squares, retail space and approximately 300 residential units (including affordable housing) in Guelph;
• Parkway House, a mixed-use residential and institutional development in Ottawa that will include a non-profit care facility for people with disabilities requiring 24/7 care in seven-, 18- and 24-storey buildings encompassing 390,000 square feet;
• 384 Arlington Street, a 24-storey, 294-unit purpose-built rental apartment in Ottawa that will incorporate the Ottawa Korean Community Church’s north and west facades in its design, created by Neuf Architect(e)s;
• and 2453-2469 Bloor St. W. in Toronto, a mass-timber, mixed-use, 103-unit residential building designed by BDP Quadrangle and developed in partnership with Leader Lane.

“There have definitely been a few projects that were intended to be condos three to five years ago that now we're proceeding with as rental projects under the current market conditions,” Reeds explained.

“The condo market is probably going to take 18 to 24 months to stabilize, normalize and clear out the historical inventory to rebalance.”