From Left to Right: Jane Almey - Bluescape (Construction Management), Heather Rolleston - Quadrangle Architects, Emily Reisman - Urban Strategies (Planning), Nataliya Tkach - EXP (Hydrogeology), Sherry Larjani - Spotlight Developments (Development), Taya Cook - Urban Capital (Development), Stacy Meek - EXP (Environmental Engineer), Fatima Shakil - Adjeleian Allen Rubeli (Structural Engineer), Tara Chisholm - WSP (Civil Engineer), Fung Lee - PMA (Landscape Architect), Lisa Spensieri - Quadrangle Architects, ManLing Lau - MarketVision (Sales Manager)
Designed and developed
by women.
Built for everyone.
Reina is breaking new ground as Canada’s first condominium designed and developed by an all-women team. Every part of the development is being led by women: project management, architecture, engineering, urban planning, construction management and sales.
The concept began when Taya Cook, Director of Development at Urban Capital, read an article in Toronto Life touting the top 20 developers in Toronto — all of whom were men (including Urban Capital’s David Wex and Mark Reeve!). It was a wakeup call about the underrepresentation of women in the real estate development industry, especially in senior roles.
Taya decided that the next Urban Capital development would be run by women, asked Sherry Larjani, Managing Partner at Spotlight Development, to join her, and in this way Reina was born. Together, the two are working to create more visibility and opportunity for women in real estate development, and inspire younger women to seek career possibilities in the sector.
“Real estate development is a massive economic driver for the region, but has been seriously lagging in terms of gender equity”, says Cook. “Women have been prominent in all sorts of roles and have done fantastic work in this industry, but their accomplishments aren’t well-recognized. We live in one of the most diverse cities in the world, and our built environment should reflect that. It’s no longer just the condo kings who are impacting our city”.