Student Housing & University Real Estate Initiative
The mission of The SHURE Initiative is to improve student lives and enhance the built environment in university neighbourhoods.
SHURE: GTA & Eastern Canada
October 15-16, 2024
Hines T3 Bayside – Toronto
Gold Sponsor
Event Sponsors
Supporters
2024 Event Speakers
Saurabh Arora
Fervent Founder | New-Age Tech Enthusiast, University Living
Fatima Baqir
Senior Director, Advisory Services, The Scion Group
Haydar Al Dahhan
President & CEO, Design Works Engineering Ltd.
Andrew Arifuzzaman
Chief Administrative Officer, University of Toronto Scarborough
Amal Awini
Director of Housing Services, York University
Bill Blais
President & CEO, Maclab Development Group
Rudy Bocchicchio
Real Estate Investment Advisory, Stormont Partners
Anthony (Tony) Cupido, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Research Chair, Sustainable Building Technologies, Mohawk College
Anneliese Denstedt
Manager - Capital Development, Conestoga College Institute of Technology & Advanced Learning
Paul Ertzly
Canadian Commercial Banking, BMO Financial Group, Senior Director, Business Property Finance
Murtaza Haider
Professor of Real Estate | Columnist, Ryerson University | The Financial Post
Adam Jacobs
Senior National Director, Research - Canada, Colliers
Scott Johnston
Associate Dean, Office of the Dean of Students, Victoria University in The University of Toronto
Sanjay Junnarkar
Managing Director - Real Estate Finance, BMO Commercial Bank, Canada
Rylan Kinnon
CEO, SpacesShared
Steve Lafleur
Independent , Public Policy Analyst and Columnist
Erik Larson
Senior Vice President - Acquisitions, Blue Vista Capital Management
Oscar Lisa
Associate Director - Investments, Fitzrovia
Viler Lika
Founder & CEO, SingleKey
Derek Lobo
CEO & Broker of Record, SVN Rock Advisors Inc.
Shelagh McCartney
Director, Together Design Lab; Director, +city lab; Associate Professor, School of Urban + Regional Planning, Toronto Metropolitan University
Ross McMillan
Director - Student Success & Services, St. Lawrence College
Jen McMillen
Vice Provost - Students, Toronto Metropolitan University
Ian Murray
Executive Advisor - Strategic Initiatives, Acadia University
Henry Morton
President, Campus Suites
Josh Morton
Vice President, Campus Suites
Edi Nisenbaum
Head of Partnerships, Harrington Housing
Kari Norman
Economist, Desjardins
Mike Porritt
Chief Development Officer, UniLodge
Mark Richardson
Chief Technology Officer, Rich Analytics
David J. Roberts
Director of the Urban Studies Program; Associate Professor, Teaching Stream; Academic Director, Multidisciplinary Urban Capstone Project; Faculty Advisor, Access & Inclusion Peer Programs, University of Toronto
Katherine Sendrowicz
Architect, ProjeKts
Sunand Sharma
Dean of Students, Conestoga College
Charlie Simpkins
Director, Strategic Initiatives & Business Enterprise Office of the Vice-President, Finance and Operations, University of Windsor
Guela Solow
Managing Partner, ARK | PETROFF
Lyle Scott
Principal, Footprint
Mark Taylor
Director of Strategic Partnerships - Canada East, 4stay
Ho Tek
Partner, Domus Inc.
Phil Tremblay, LL.B.
Managing Partner, Fakhoury Global Immigration (Canada)
Frances Wdowczyk
Special Advisor to the CAO, Operations and Special Projects, University of Toronto Scarborough
Karen Williams
Vice President of Marketing & Culinary, Aramark
Warren Yee
Managing Partner, Altmaven Capital
Ryan Zizzo
Founder & CEO, Mantle Developments
Dima Zreik
Director - Investments, Canada Infrastructure Bank
A visionary entrepreneur and digital pioneer, Saurabh Arora has reshaped the landscape of student accommodation. Born and raised in Meerut, he moved to New Delhi at 17 to pursue his education. An exchange program in Nottingham, UK, became the defining moment of his entrepreneurial journey, revealing a significant demand-supply gap in global student housing. This insight led to the inception of Unilodgers in 2012 and University Living in 2015. Under his leadership, University Living has experienced meteoric growth, achieving a 3x year-on-year growth and doubling in size even amidst the pandemic. Today, University Living is a vertically integrated and horizontally expanded global student housing managed marketplace.
Fatima Baqir brings over 12 years of student housing expertise, leveraging her extensive on- and off-campus higher education experience to offer comprehensive advisory services. She has led and managed projects for post-secondary institutions across North America, including prestigious schools like McGill University and Texas State University. At Scion, her work primarily focuses on Market and Demand Studies, Feasibility Assessments, and Housing Master and Strategic Planning.
As President, Chief Executive Officer, and co-founder of Design Works Engineering, Haydar Al Dahhan has been instrumental in taking the firm from a small, two-person operation in Northern Alberta to a highly respected, multi-national engineering powerhouse in just eight years. Under his leadership, the company has grown to employ over 120 experts in various fields, becoming known for its innovative and integrated approach to engineering and its focus on human-centric teams.Haydar was born in England and raised in several major international cities, which have provided him with a unique perspective and understanding of the global engineering industry.
Experienced, results-oriented, and strategic professional with over 20 years of experience in leading and building Housing and Conference operations in various institutions and provinces. A successful leader of diverse and achieved teams; and an effective driver of institutional change initiatives that enhance the student experience and support the University’s academic mission. Proven ability to build community relations, collaborate with partners, increase service quality and value, and enhance business processes efficiency in an educational environment with a focus on student success.
Bill Blais is the President and CEO of Maclab Development Group, an Edmonton based real estate company. His 26 year career has always focused on real estate development, including mixed use multi family development, land development, office conversion, and hotel development.
Rudy is responsible for idea generation and execution of Stormont’s investment and advisory mandates. Since joining Stormont, Rudy has focused on the residential sector, both domestically and abroad, with coverage spanning: conventional multifamily, seniors housing, student housing, and land development. Prior to Stormont, Rudy spent four years at CPP Investments, where he focused on the US residential sector, including CPP’s national student housing investment program.
Anneliese Denstedt has been managing the real estate portfolios of post-secondary institutions for almost 10 years. With experience in both the university and college sectors, she brings specialized knowledge to this niche market segment. Since joining Conestoga College in 2023, she has focused her efforts on the acquisition and development of student housing properties, with the goal of creating net new beds for students throughout the communities the College serves. Anneliese actively participates as a stakeholder representative with local municipalities on planning policy as it relates to the needs of students and the post-secondary sector.
Murtaza Haider is a professor of Data Science and Real Estate Management at Toronto Metropolitan University. He also serves as the research director of the Urban Analytics Institute. Professor Haider holds an adjunct professorship of Engineering at McGill University. In addition, he is a Director of Regionomics Inc., a boutique consulting firm specializing in the economics of cities and regions. Dr. Haider is the author of Real Estate Markets: An Introduction (2020) and Getting Started with Data Science: Making Sense of Data with Analytics (2016).
Adam Jacobs is the national head of research for Colliers Canada. He has appeared in numerous publications and media outlets including BNN, the Globe and Mail and the Financial Post. He was previously in leadership positions at Cushman and Wakefield and Oxford Properties. He holds a PhD from the University of Wisconsin. His interests are the fundamentals underpinning real estate including demographics, the labour market, and the investment environment.
Rylan is CEO and co-founder of SpacesShared. Rylan has spent a decade working in postsecondary advocacy, policy, program administration, and technology in the public and private sectors. As a partnership and consensus builder, Rylan believes in engaging as broad a base of stakeholders as possible when developing solutions to complex problems. Rylan has experience managing large teams and scaling technology companies.
Steve Lafleur is a public policy analyst with over a decade of experience working for Canadian think tanks. He is a former Senior Policy Analyst at the Fraser Institute. He holds an M.A. from Wilfrid Laurier University. His work has appeared in most major Canadian media outlets including the Globe and Mail, the National Post, and the Toronto Star.
Erik Larson is a Senior Vice President at Blue Vista, with responsibility for sourcing, structuring, underwriting and executing transactions on behalf of Blue Vista’s real estate equity strategies. Erik’s areas of focus include traditional multifamily, build-for-rent and student housing, in both the United States and Canada. Prior to joining Blue Vista, Erik spent seven years at Cedar Street Capital Partners as Managing Director of Finance, focused on all aspects of multifamily real estate development and ownership, including the sourcing of transactions, deal structuring and capitalization, disposition and asset management. Prior to Cedar, Erik worked in real estate finance at Cole Taylor Bank and Prudential Mortgage Capital Company.
Jen McMillen is a senior post-secondary leader with more than 20 years experience in student affairs, human rights and policy development. A strong advocate for equity and inclusion, Jen believes that student achievements are closely linked to an active student community. As vice-provost, students, Jen oversees the direction of multiple units dedicated to ensuring student programs, experiences and services are of the highest quality and readily accessible to all students, which fall under five main areas of responsibility - the Office of the Registrar, Athletics and Recreation, Student Affairs, Student Wellbeing, and Student Communications. Jen joined Toronto Metropolitan University in 2019 from Humber College, where as dean of students,
Specializing in public involvement and stakeholder relationship management, Ian is a strategic planner with 30 years’ experience in the political, international humanitarian not-for-profit, and higher education sectors. Ian is currently an executive advisor to the senior leadership team at Acadia University, focusing on the institution’s strategic initiatives including collaborations with local municipalities. With finely tuned proficiency in project management and planning, marketing and communications, public relations and public affairs, public involvement, and signature engagement events, Ian enjoys expanding knowledge and passing it on to others.
Josh has been with Campus Suites in varying capacities over the last five years, rising from a project coordinator to Vice President. He is responsible for running due diligence programs, contract negotiation and underwriting prospective investments to determine feasibility while taking an active role in the development process. During the design stage of new projects, Mr. Morton provides insight into the lives of the students to help resolve issues before they even arise. He has also proven his worth as an asset manager, helping to strengthen both leasing efforts and property profitability through the use of proptech.
Harrington is the leading Canadian co-living provider, operating across Canada, the US, and the UK. The Harrington team is dedicated to transforming the outdated residential leasing sector to make the rental process simple, affordable, and flexible for students and young professionals. Harrington is an asset-light business, helping landlords achieve 100% occupancy through its tech-enabled leasing platform and assisting students and young professionals to have access to flexible and affodable housing. Today, Harrington offers a unique and upscale co-living experience in the hub of major cities around the world to over 2800 tenants.
Kari Norman is an Economist with Desjardins Group, based in Toronto. Since joining the team in 2023, she has been actively contributing to thought leadership and in-depth analyses of the Canadian economy, housing market and public policy. Prior to joining Desjardins, Kari has worked with the Canadian Association of Business Economics, Clayton Research Associates, the C.D. Howe Institute and Royal Bank Economics.
Mike Porritt has 15 years of Executive Director or Director level experience in student housing at institutions in the United States and Canada as well as purpose-built off campus student housing in Waterloo and London, Ontario. His work includes the development of academic integration programs now in place today within residential programs at McGill University (Quebec), Trent University (Ontario), Winona State University (Minnesota) and Appalachian State University (North Carolina). Combined with his experience in market analysis, planning for new construction and major renovations, he contributes a wealth of knowledge both in the Canadian higher education and residential landscape and the US student housing sector.
Mark J. Richardson is the Chief Technology Officer at Rich Analytics, and the volunteer Technical Lead at HousingNowTO.com. He has 20+ Years of consulting-experience with public-sector clients at all-levels of Government in Canada, and was part of the City of Toronto’s Open Data Advisory Group which helped define the City’s first official Open Data Master Plan in 2018.
David Roberts is the Director of and a professor in the Urban Studies Program at UofT. He completed his undergraduate degrees in business administration and political science at the University of Washington and worked as a social worker with homeless and refugee youth in Seattle before coming to UofT as a graduate student in the geography department.
Charlie leads the University of Windsor’s business enterprise and alternative revenue generation strategy, including oversight of real estate and development, capital project procurement, commercial deal negotiation and risk management. Charlie brings a diverse background from the private sector, having held progressively senior roles at A.C. Nielsen in Montreal and Movati Athletic in Toronto. As a Senior Analyst at A.C. Nielsen, he led a client service team that supported consumer packaged goods manufacturers in eastern Canada and the northeast United States, including MolsonCoors, British American Tobacco and L’Oreal.
With more than 25 years of experience in sustainable design, development, and operations, Lyle has a broad (and trusted) perspective on the best sustainability strategy for his clients. A trained mechanical engineer specializing in energy efficiency, facilities management, and sustainable development, Lyle is the founding and managing Principal of Footprint. Providing leadership to the growing Footprint team, Lyle’s greatest strength is collaborating with architects, engineers, and developers to create the most appropriate sustainability solution. Having worked as both a facilities manager at the Hospital for Sick Children and as a developer and contractor, Lyle’s well-rounded experience is very valuable for clients.
Fran Wdowczyk has three decades of experience in higher education and non-profit roles. From 1996-2000, Fran was the Director of Housing at UTSC. She left UTSC to fulfill the role of Executive Director of a non-profit, working across Canada to improve student health and safety on campus. She returned to UTSC in 2009, where she currently holds the position of Director of Business Development and Special Advisor to the CAO. She’s received several awards and is currently the co-chair of the UTSC Sixtieth Celebrations.
Karen is a highly experienced and strategic marketing executive leading Aramark’s marketing and culinary team in Canada. Her extensive portfolio includes market insights, culinary and menu innovation, health and wellness, environmental sustainability, consumer experience, and marketing program development across various non-commercial food service channels, including retail operations, residence dining, healthcare, and senior living. Karen collaborates closely with her team to bring strategy to life, developing client and consumer solutions that ensure Aramark stays at the forefront of evolving client demands and consumer trends. With over 20 years of experience in non-commercial hospitality, Karen holds a Master’s degree in Human Health a
Ryan Zizzo is Founder & CEO at Mantle Developments, a climatechange consultancy focused on climate-smart infrastructure and buildings, based in Toronto. Their team of engineers, architects,
planners, and climate change experts assist public and private sector clients take advantage of the latest climate-smart thinking and strategies related to the design, construction, and operation of the built environment. Mantle Developments helps projects go beyond energy efficiency, incorporating resilience and life cycle approaches to make projects future proof and net-zero carbon ready.
planners, and climate change experts assist public and private sector clients take advantage of the latest climate-smart thinking and strategies related to the design, construction, and operation of the built environment. Mantle Developments helps projects go beyond energy efficiency, incorporating resilience and life cycle approaches to make projects future proof and net-zero carbon ready.
Dima Zreik is a Director on the Canada Infrastructure Bank’s investment team focused on financing the decarbonization of buildings across Canada. Bringing almost 20 years of experience in project finance, Dima is currently responsible for originating, structuring, and executing investments as part of the CIB’s Building Retrofit Initiative. Dima is a strong believer in sustainable financing and investing in climate-smart infrastructure projects that contribute to a smaller environmental footprint.
About: SHURE is a unique platform that brings all types of real estate impacted by the university environment into focus, including the myriad of on-campus buildings (academic, athletic, retail, self-storage, cold storage, housing, mixed-use, office) and off-campus buildings (conventional multifamily for-rent, residential, private student housing, purpose-built student accommodation, faculty housing and mixed-used).
Indeed, Canada’s population is rapidly growing, driven by general immigration and a surge in international student enrollment. Canada has become a popular destination for students in global regions due to its high quality of life, stable government, and world-renowned post-secondary institutions. Many students seek to live on-campus or near the university for these reasons. In addition, due to the above-average quality of life in many university neighbourhoods, members of the public and commercial entities are seeking out properties in the proximity of the academic institutions. For these reasons, there is a significant lack of available real estate in university environments. SHURE is the premier platform that brings together all the stakeholders in the university environment in this engaging and productive business development exchange.
With the mission to improve student lives and enhance the built environment in university neighbourhoods, SHURE GTA & Eastern Canada will convene on October 15-16, 2024 at Hines T3 Bayside. Attendees and participants will represent the most active university real estate executives (including property trusts and boards of trustees), commercial real estate developers, institutional investors, capital sources, and other owners in the market.
In addition, SHURE will bring together the most innovative firms working in property technology and campus technology.
“SHURE is a not-to-be-missed event for professionals and executives who work in or support university real estate and student accommodation,” Andrew Parr, Associate Vice-President – Student Housing and Community Services, The University of British Columbia.
“I wanted to personally thank you for this amazing event.”
– Jonas Emre, Founder & CEO, Harrington Housing
“Thanks for putting together a great conference.”
– Neil Murray, Development & Asset Manager, Podium Developments
“My thanks for such a wonderful event.”
– Valerie Bruce, Interim Director – Student Housing and Community Care, Toronto Metropolitan University
Agenda
The following is a list of topics that will be covered in each of three separate tracks. For an in-depth look at topic breakdowns, speakers and additional learning opportunities, please request our full agendas here. Agendas are subject to change.
OCTOBER 15: University Real Estate & Master Planning
Thesis: Universities are often the most impactful municipal landlords, boasting a robust portfolio of academic, athletic facilities, retail and housing assets. Learn from property trust executives, university leadership and other stakeholders about master plans and campus visions.
OCTOBER 16 TRACK 1: Housing for Student Accommodation
Thesis: Multifamily developers and purpose-built student housing executives are approaching the housing crisis and lack of supply as unique opportunities in today’s investment environment. Learn from institutional investors, pension funds, and private developers about their plans to support new housing supply in university environments.
OCTOBER 16 TRACK 2: SHURE Property & Campus Technology Xchange
Thesis: Technology that touches or improves the operating environment of buildings for landlords and tenants or enhances day-to-day life at the university. Learn from smart building innovators, including heating/cooling, internet connectivity, marketing/leasing executives, transportation stakeholders, and more.
Request Full Agenda
Please note only corporate email addresses will be accepted. We will use your email address to verify that you are a real estate and/or university professional.