Cross the Port Mann Bridge, and a broad mix of industrial, retail, residential and agricultural land unfolds to visitors from north of the Fraser River. The constraints that mountains and the river impose on development are gone, helping make housing more affordable and job space that much cheaper to build. The development outlook in an area tagged for the region’s second downtown is so bright the Urban Development Institute plans to add a Fraser Valley division this fall, recognition of the area’s unique character and growing importance.
But the region’s opportunities are already well known to Jordan MacDonald, who, with business partner Justin Mitchell, launched Frontline Real Estate Servicesin 2009. Then in their mid-20s, and armed with experience at major downtown real estate brokerages, the duo saw an opportunity to be on the frontline of activity in the region – not just the Fraser Valley but also Metro Vancouver.
“It’s really this next frontier, and what it really [lacked was] the presence of a local firm with its feet on the ground that had the sophistication of the downtown firms,” MacDonald, now 30, said. “We really saw the opportunity to bridge the gap, using the connections that we had.”
Frontline, a small boutique firm, has positioned itself to expand with the region, one of the fastest-growing in Metro Vancouver, with Surrey alone posting 18.6% growth in the most recent census.
Operating out of a 2,500-square-foot office in the heart of Cloverdale’s historic downtown, the brokerage has 15 staff handling commercial sales and leasing as well as residential properties.
Using a strategy of focused teamwork, the company has established itself as a force in the market. It has logged close to $200 million in transactions since 2009 and garnered MacDonald a nomination as an emerging leader in this year’s Commercial Real Estate Awards of Excellence, sponsored by NAIOP and Business in Vancouver.
But if the nomination went to MacDonald, it owed plenty to Mitchell’s work crunching numbers that have kept the firm focused on genuine opportunities.
“Justin and Jordan are a good complement,” said Hendrik Zessel, senior managing director at Cushman & Wakefield Ltd., who saw both men when they worked at his firm prior to them establishing their own firm.
Mitchell was a financial analyst for Cushman. He underwrote more than a billion dollars worth of deals for Kevin Meikle and other star brokers, and Zessel said Mitchell’s acumen when it comes to numbers complements MacDonald’s drive.
“You’ve got skill sets in different ways that work together really well,” he said. “There’s always a team, and there’s always somebody there. Very few people become successful on their own.”
MacDonald’s appreciation of Mitchell is genuine; when the two met at Cushman, it soon became apparent the pair had been moving in the same circles for years until real estate brought them face to face.
“Justin is an absolute genius; he is one of the smartest people I know, hands down,” MacDonald said. “We have extremely different, almost polar opposite skill sets and personalities, but when put together they’re really mutually beneficial.”
Cushman attracted MacDonald because of its reputation as a good, fun-loving place for a young broker. He was tending bar at the Boathouse at the time, but cultivated a relationship with the firm.
MacDonald got his break in 2004, working first as an analyst, then gravitating to the industrial side of the business. When an opening came up in the Surrey and Langley markets, he jumped at it.
“I recognized that there was a real opportunity,” he said. “There wasn’t a huge presence of any of the major firms. They had listings out here, but there was a lot of Suttons and NAIs and Homelifes working on commercial properties, so it seemed like there was a lot of room for growth.”
He made the shift in 2005 and rode the boom in commercial real estate to become Cushman’s rookie of the year in 2006 and part of the President’s Roundtable in 2007. He credits Zessel’s mentorship as a significant factor in that success.
“He would meet with me once a week, and talk about how to take over the territories,” he said. “He not only taught me to be a good broker but also taught me to look at the opportunities, if you’re practising real estate every day, to start building your wealth.”
MacDonald isn’t one to squander opportunities. A major influence in his life has been his mother, Lisa MacDonald. She raised MacDonald and his brother single-handedly for eight years, after her husband, cameraman Bruce Ingram, died shooting a chase scene for the 1986 action film The Wraith. (She subsequently married former Edmonton Oilers right-winger B.J. MacDonald.)
“She has a huge will; she can move a mountain if she needs to,” he said. “She’s always told me, life is not a dress rehearsal; you’ve got one shot, so go for it.”
MacDonald grew up in West Vancouver, eventually heading to the University of Western Ontario to study urban development.
He came home in summer 2000 to discover his family had new neighbours – Bob Repchuk and his wife Lenora Gates who was with tenant representation firm BLJC Orange Group.
“Lenora asked me what I wanted to do, and I had said I didn’t really know,” MacDonald said. “I told her that I liked real estate and I liked development, but I wasn’t sure where I would go with that.”
Gates offered to refer him to CBRE Ltd. A summer internship at the firm in 2001 clinched it, and MacDonald set his sights on real estate.
Gates is impressed at what MacDonald and Mitchell have accomplished with Frontline.
“They’re incrementally growing their business, but the reason they are? They are focused, they’ve found a niche and they went after it,” she said, “and they’ve stayed pretty core to that.”
But the success of the business isn’t something MacDonald is willing to pursue at any cost.
While visiting Thailand seven years ago – he loves to travel – he got a tattoo around his upper left arm that says, “My word is my bond.” It’s a reminder of the deeper legacy he wants to leave, an impact his birth father’s colleagues repeatedly told MacDonald and his brother about in letters they wrote to the boys after Ingram’s death.
“[He] was a man of integrity, and that was something that you could count on,” MacDonald said. “If I had to leave a lasting legacy on Frontline and our business activities, I would want integrity to be something that was the stamp that everyone could look at.” •
