StreetSide Developments keeps designs relevant

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Edmonton’s multi-family builder of the year is showing no signs of slowing down.

While it may have taken a short break to collect nine awards, including the Multi-Family Builder of the Year at the mid-March Canadian Home Builders’ Association Edmonton Region Awards of Excellence in Housing gala, StreetSide Developments is back to work with 26 projects on the go right now.

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“Going forward, there’s certainly a continued expansion of product lines and product types, said Nicholas Carels, StreetSide’s vice-president.

That includes different, innovative takes on apartments, townhomes and even bungalows.

“We’re also working on a new line of product for downsizers in Edmonton. I think there’s an opportunity in that market that has been underserved for some time,” said Carels.

That specialty line, a townhouse bungalow that starts in the mid-$350,000 range, provides single-level living with 10-foot ceilings, in-floor hearting but without a basement. These smaller, unique spaces, said Carels, are now available in Southfort Meadows in Fort Saskatchewan and will also be coming to Edgemont and Blatchford this year.

Also in Blatchford, StreetSide is in the framing stages for its Abbey townhomes, its top-selling model — The Abbey won Best Multi-Family (Duplex/Townhome) $300,000 to $350,000 at the awards.

Meanwhile, another StreetSide award winner from that night, its Urban Flats concept — affordable, wood-framed apartments with nine-foot ceilings and modern unit amenities but without elevators, underground parking and similar common features in order to provide an affordable, quality product — is being looked at for inclusion in Blatchford as well.

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“We have about 53 per cent of the multi-family market share in Edmonton so if you bought a multi-family home in Edmonton — a new one, last year — more than half of the people bought it from us,” said Carels.

Big Night

At the 2024 CHBA Edmonton Awards, it was StreetSide that walked away with the most awards that evening.

In addition to the Builder of the Year Multi-Family award, it won five of the 10 multi-family awards.

Its Urban Flats won for Best Apartment Building for the West Secord Urban Flats, while its Fika model won for Best Multi-Family (Apartment Style) under $250,000.

The west end West Secord Urban Flats proved popular and StreetSide is now working on bringing on another set of these apartments, West Secord Urban Flats 2. Further, the winning Fika model is from the West Secord Urban Flats.

StreetSide also took the Best Multi-Family (Duplex/Townhouse) under $300,000 for The Demi, the Best Multi-Family (Duplex/Townhouse) $300,000 to $350,000 for the aforementioned Abbey, and the Best Multi-Family (Duplex/Townhouse) $350,000 to $400,000 for The Vista at the March 16 event held at the downtown Edmonton Convention Centre.

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The Demi model, said Carels, is built across Edmonton and is a bit smaller of a unit at 12 feet wide, the Abbey comes in at 14 feet wide and The Vista is slightly larger and includes everything the smaller models offer and more.

“Of course, excitement is a huge part of it,” said Carels about the awards event and taking a top trophy. “We had 30 people from our team there plus some of our supporting business units like our design centre and our accounting team, departments like that who also play a big role in what we do. There was a pretty big ruckus from all the Qualico (StreetSide is a Qualico company whose other local builders include Pacesetter Homes and Sterling Homes) tables to win an award of that magnitude and importance.”

Building homes, emphasized Carels, is a pretty unique privilege and to create something as important as a home a family lives in and then to be recognized for that privilege makes StreetSide “incredibly proud.”

StreetSide also received the Recognition For Most Homes Sales Award in addition to two more sales awards.

“A lot of these homes that we built and won awards for, they are leading edge in Edmonton,” said Carels. “They are some of the first of their kind. They don’t mimic or reflect anything that is currently in the market. So to me it’s a true testament to the talent of our team that we’re able to put out that many homes but they’re also unique homes.”

While Carels repeatedly acknowledged that the wins are due to their team members — StreetSide just hired its 50th employee — and the trades who work with them, he noted it was also nice to be recognized once more.

“We won that award (Multi-Family Builder of the Year) back in 2016 I believe it was, both at the local and the provincial level, so this was a second time for us but we were starting to feel like the ‘80s (Edmonton) Oilers where they had banners — but they were all from a long time ago — hanging in the rafters,” said Carels. “It was nice to get a fresh one, let’s put it that way.”

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