From Baltic Shopping Centres To Toronto High-Rises: The Evolution Of Elysium

With over 85 years of combined experience, Harley Mintz and Jamie Torpey of Toronto-based Elysium Investments know how to move in harmony with the real estate market. Even the challenging one of today.

The pair’s know-how is hard earned. Before coming together to form Elysium in 2022, Mintz and Torpey had extensive careers across a variety of disciplines and in international markets.

As co-chairs, and with the expertise of Sayf Hassan (CEO) and Steven Mintz (Advisor), Mintz and Torpey have shaped Elysium into what it is today: an intuitive operation working in collaboration with landowners, investors, and municipalities to deliver much-needed housing to communities across Southern Ontario.

The firm currently has five projects and 4,000 residential units in the pipeline in Toronto alone, for a development value that nears $3 billion.

Elysium Investments C-Suite

From International Waters To A Local Focus

Though formally trained as a Chartered Professional Accountant, real estate has always been a focus for Harley Mintz. His 50-year career has taken him from Managing Partner of Mintz & Partners to Vice Chairman of Deloitte Canada, and in both roles he worked on tax planning and consultancy for real estate clientele.

After that, Mintz turned his focus to a new venture: a family-run real estate investment operation (that would be the beginnings of Elysium).

“When we first opened, there was really nobody knocking on my door. And so I was sitting in my office thinking, ‘I know real estate, but people don’t know that I do real estate’,” he says. “And that’s when Jamie Torpey, who’s now my partner in Elysium, showed up.” Mintz and Torpey had had dealings together, as advisor and client, for 20 years before that time.

Torpey, who had 35 years of development experience across North America and Europe, was living and working in the Baltic states at the time, where he was investing in commercial assets, including shopping centres. Plenty of unanswered demand for commercial spaces meant the region was a smart place to position yourself as an investor, which ended up enticing Mintz as well.

“We built eight or 10 shopping centres in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. As soon as they were fully tenanted, we would sell them and go on to the next one,” Mintz shares. “We were getting better returns there than you would in Toronto, because there was very little competition.”

But socioeconomically, things changed. When the Russia-Ukraine war broke out, both Torpey and Mintz shifted their focus to Toronto, and what Elysium could be moving forward.

“We wanted to look at what we could do here, collectively, with Harley’s knowledge, contacts, and experience and my own background,” says Torpey. “We decided the way we wanted to approach things was to maximize the value of properties, and buy them in a way that suited us. We were fortunate enough to meet Sayf, who really was able to open the windows to what was happening in the market here. I think, together, we created a good philosophy of how we want to do our business.”

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“Different Perspectives”; A Collaborative Approach

Hassan came to Elysium with two decades of the type of experience the firm needed. In his previous role, he oversaw acquisition at Parkbridge Lifestyle Communities. Hassan had a hand in pushing Elysium in the direction of purpose-built rental some two-and-a-half years ago, as the new condo market was starting to show signs of slowing down.

Elysium, today, continues to be opportunity-driven and malleable to the market. Thanks to Mintz and Torpey’s network in the Baltics, the firm also benefits from an international investor-base paired with several strong local investors. Mintz also noted that ”We work with great partners, including Oikoi Living Inc., Trolleybus and Pinemount Developments. Some of the projects Elysium currently has in the pipeline include a heritage-integrated project at Isabella and Sherbourne, a high-rise that’s in early planning stages near the future Leaside LRT Station, and a landmark project set to rise near the High Park and Keele TTC stations. Elysium currently has several sites under consideration.

Bayview and Eglinton, near Leaside LRT (Elysium Investments)

And the firm is still looking to expand. It really is a testament to those leaders behind the scenes of Elysium, and how well they’ve been able to play off their strengths individually, and as a team.

“Jamie, he was always a real estate guy, so he’s buying land, building, tenanting, negotiating. And I know everybody from my days in accounting and consulting; the connections that I bring, as well as the learning that I’ve done from dealing with all the best developers in Canada as an advisor, marries up well with Jamie’s expertise,” says Mintz. “What we both lack is people bringing us deals and knowing that we want to do them, and that’s Sayf. The mix is tremendous, [with] the different perspectives we bring.”

To learn more, visit elysiuminvestments.ca.

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This article was produced in partnership with STOREYS Custom Studio.