Top Down Investments’ Guy Bouchard
DUNCAN – Top Down Investments is all about connecting good people with great real estate.
Guy Bouchard moved his Top Down Investments development company to Vancouver Island in 2020, and they have since acquired close to 200 acres of developable land with an estimated construction value of $225 million.
“We’re working on more as we speak,” says Bouchard. “It’s been gangbusters since we’ve arrived , and we see a lot of growth coming up. We’re trying to address the housing crisis on Vancouver Island, and we’re looking for capital and industry partners to acquire, design and develop real estate.”
Top Down Investments is currently working on two residential properties. Price Place Development features two large multi-family apartment buildings in downtown Duncan. They are also busy with a 20-acre site on Old Victoria Road in South Nanaimo that is currently part way through the rezoning process.
“It’s a 14-acre residential site that is a master planned, purpose built-townhouse development, and another 6 acres are industrial,” he explains. “There are 200 proposed townhomes in the project, and this development is going to change the energy in the south end.”
Bouchard started in residential real estate 20 years ago, and about 10 years he started focusing on commercial properties and buying and renovating multi-family units. The past five years, he’s added raw land development to the company’s repertoire.
An aerial artist rendering of the Old Victoria Road project
Their forte is building networking contacts. “We reach out to landowners and we can strategically partner with them,” he says. “With the cost of land and, owners not always knowing what to do with it, we partner with those that need help in the development process, and can sometimes partner with them in the land itself. The ideal person for us right now are owners of land that would like to develop it.
“We are also trying to get the word out there to other people in the industry that are like minded and feel they can bring value to the table. We’re open to creative ideas for sweat equity partnerships as well as equity investors.”
Artist’s rendering of the Price Place Development
Top Down Investments has proven itself to be successful in developing properties because of its proactive method of working with neighborhoods surrounding the land.
“Streamlining the process is our objective by design, and we do that by engaging the public first,” he notes. “It’s 100 per cent about public support, and we get that by engaging to get feedback on how they’d like to see a development happen around them. We already know what the community wants and needs, before we make an application for a development.
“Being a community-based developer on Vancouver Island makes us unique and brings more value to the Cowichan Valley and the Island.”
