President Michael H. DeGroote has no plans to make Westbury International Corporation one of the largest real estate developers in the country. Instead he is successfully steering Westbury along a more "low-key" course marked by reputation and profitability.
 Westbury International Builds Its Reputation One Project at a Time
"Westbury is a full-service real estate development Company, specializing in commercial/industrial land, residential development and property management" he says. "We take raw land and manage the development from design to final sale or occupancy. My philosophy is to work within our means. We do not speculate or enter into conditional sales. If we promote a residential or office project, we go ahead with it.
Westbury is located in Burlington. It began in 1991 with a residential property in London. Over the next few years the Company focused on the Oakville and Burlington area including 8 office buildings containing over 625,000 square feet. Now, Mr. DeGroote and his staff of four are concentrating on Burlington as a new commercial office market, making use of the reputation they have built to date.
"I live in Oakville and work in Burlington and I like having a hand in the growth of the community where I've been for some 20 years" he says. "I also have a very hands-on management style and I'd like Westbury's properties to be more local.
One local project taking shape over the next 10 years is Westbury Business Park I and II, occupying 84 acres on two properties fronting on the Queen Elizabeth Way. The development will be a combination of about 500,000 square feet of "Class A" office space and about 700,000 square feet of industrial space. Westbury Business Park I currently has two 7 storey office buildings representing 275,000 square feet of "Class A" office space.
Westbury's current portfolio of management properties encompasses approximately 30 tenants in over 625,000 square feet of industrial and office space in Oakville and Burlington. Westbury provides full service property management with a focus on customer satisfaction.
Westbury, through its sister Company, Roseland Green Inc., has developed a 145 unit townhouse complex known as Roseland Green in Burlington on New Street and a 216 unit 4 storey condominium project known as Oaklands Green on Plains Road West in Burlington. Roseland Green Inc. also developed the Unsworth Green residential property in West Burlington.
Mr. DeGroote generally finds Burlington and Oakville to be a business oriented, "developer-friendly" community. Westbury was awarded the Commercial/Industrial Developer of the Year award in 2001 by the BEDC. |
