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This post is part of a series covering ULI Toronto’s Electric Cities Spring 2017 Symposium which took place on April 24 and 25 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. ULI Toronto’s second city building symposium saw over 1,000 industry professionals gather to learn and engage on topics revolving around placemaking, mobility and technology.

On April 24, 2017, the ULI Toronto Electric Cities Symposium opened with a keynote panel entitled Global Giants and Local Heroes. The panel featured city building leaders and investors who call Toronto home and the world their market. The event was moderated by Jan De Silva, President and CEO, Toronto Region Board of Trade, and brought together an impressive panel of experts, which included: Jim Berry, Senior Vice President, HATCH; Michael Cooper, President and Chief Responsible Officer, Dream; David Thom, President/Managing Director, IBI Group; and Michael Turner, Head of Canada, Oxford Properties Group.

The panelists recounted their early successes in Toronto, offered strategies for successful global expansion and provided an outlook for the future. Three major themes emerged from the panel discussion:

Grow local (slow and steady)

The panelists’ early successes came from a focus on core business activities to strengthen their knowledge and to become experts in their fields. The panelists stayed within Toronto to take advantage of local business opportunities and did not stretch themselves into unknown business sectors. This focus allowed them to become experts in their field. For example, Toronto’s urban growth required infrastructure and transportation planning. The expansion of the University subway line in the 1970s benefitted HATCH, and its infrastructure development focus. IBI found early success with its attention on transportation planning as the City of Toronto evaluated relocating industrial railways away from the downtown core.

Go global by being local

The panel’s consensus for advice in achieving global success is to act like locals and leverage your business focus and skills. IBI leveraged its planning focus and early Toronto public transportation work to win consulting assignments that included the United Kingdom highway system and later, the London Olympics transportation plan. HATCH’s infrastructure success resulted in public transit work in Baltimore, Buffalo and in Vancouver for the development of the Sky Train. Another important global growth strategy is to follow your customers. As Canadian mining activity moderated, HATCH followed its clients overseas to Africa and Australia.

Oxford advised not to chase deals and grow at a steady pace. One can replicate the early local formula for success and develop with foreign local groups with good market knowledge.

Despite headwinds, the real estate outlook is positive

The panel identified several near-term headwinds, but continue to have a positive outlook. These include the changing U.S. political landscape which has created some economic and policy uncertainty that has delayed Canadian business decisions. However, the U.S. economy is healthy and any political uncertainty should be viewed as mere noise. Brexit may have a negative impact on the London economy, but Oxford noted that high quality London real estate continues to be in demand and trade at low cap rates.

Finally, technology will continue to impact the future of urban development, design and operations, but one must always adjust to grow.

Despite global success, the panelists continue to call Toronto home. Financially, the city offers a wide variety of skilled labour, ready access to capital and international tax treaties with foreign countries. And, from a personal standpoint, the city is clean, diverse and has good public transportation.