City Park Homes has rebranded to City Park, a change the Vaughan, Ont.-based homebuilder and developer says reflects its transformation from lowrise projects to townhome communities, mixed-use developments and an expansion into the U.S.

Founded in 2010, City Park’s homebuilding focus has been cities on the edge of the Greater Toronto Area such as Vaughan, Stouffville, Mississauga and Newmarket. Having started with small, boutique infill homes, it grew to building condos, townhome communities and towers, including the six-storey, 228-townhome Woodbridge Gates.

Its scale is continuing to broaden, with one project planned to exceed 300 homes. Texas has also become a target market for the company, where it plans to build and develop residential and commercial properties in the Dallas region.

As a maturing company that can take on more ambitious projects, striking out “Homes” from its name signals its strategy to go above and beyond its roots. Thus condos, the hospitality sector and the U.S. are now among its priorities.

“We’re not that little infill company anymore. We have a lot of developments, a lot of approvals and a lot of buildings, and it’s time to be more corporate,” City Park’s president Christopher Zeppa said in an interview with RENX Homes.

City Park’s growth

Having “started off small” with lowrise homes, City Park spent its early years establishing a positive reputation with municipalities where it was building, Zeppa said.

Its first larger project, he said, was the 13-townhome Ravines of Islington in Vaughan, with units ranging from 1,850 to 2,600 square feet. It followed up with Ravines of Islington Encore, a 37-townhome second phase with units ranging from 1,900 to 2,300 square feet.

City Park maintained this strategy by looking for similar locations with the “exact sizes of lots that we already had a calculation for, and kept perfecting layouts and how to build them,” Zeppa said.

The restoration of Old Barber House in Mississauga’s Streetsville neighbourhood is a stand-out effort to Zeppa. A heritage home that was once converted to a restaurant, City Park revamped the aging Victorian mansion to become the centrepiece of a townhome, single-detached and semi-detached community.

City Park graduated to bigger developments such as Ultra Towns with 56 townhomes, the 58-unit condo West Woodbridge Village, and Woodbridge Gates.

The economy of scale works better for bigger projects, Zeppa said, and construction can be phased to allow for adaptability. If an element of the community is not resonating with buyers, or is highly popular, City Park can adjust future phases in response. Land for smaller residential developments has also become harder to acquire of late, he said, and it ends up taking roughly the same amount of time and resources to approve a small project compared to a larger counterpart.

City Park’s new identity

The new name of City Park also reflects its transition into being a developer that can perform land assembly, design and construction of bigger-scale projects.

Though Zeppa resisted renaming the company at first, his opposition melted away after hearing the story of how Starbucks underwent several rebrandings on its way to becoming a major coffee chain.

A key element of the new strategies is the Dallas market, where City Park has the goal of operating in the multifamily housing and commercial property sectors, including the rental and sale of commercial units.

The regulations, red tape and “exorbitant fees” in Ontario put companies like City Park in the “penalty box,” Zeppa said, pushing the company south of the border where it is easier to operate.

“We explored it, we liked the market, and I think there’s an opportunity for us to expand,” he said about Dallas.

The company has a U.S. office in McKinney, Texas, which is in the northern outskirts of Dallas. If sales in the U.S. go well, it could double or triple its U.S. headcount, Zeppa said. City Park also wants to double or triple its headcount in Vaughan to between 40 and 50 to keep up with its new direction.

City Park’s aspiration is to develop master-planned communities such as ones with back-to-back townhomes and single-family homes, featuring trails and walkability, Zeppa said.

Upcoming projects

In Canada, City Park has a project in Newmarket, Ont. where it plans to announce more details after Victoria Day, Zeppa said. It is planned as a redevelopment of the Bogart House, which is to be part of a larger residential project of 310 homes consisting of back-to-back townhomes and single-family homes. In Stouffville, it has plans for a 170-unit project with a commercial area and a hotel.

Additional upcoming developments in Canada include the condo QST in Mississauga and the bungalow townhome project Kingfisher Cove west of Kingston.

In Texas, City Park has three projects in the wings and is hunting for more sites, Zeppa said. One of the projects, Phase 2 of a project in McKinney, is planned to be an infill townhome community of 154 homes with eight acres of commercial space. Two of the projects are designed as subdivisions with a total of 1,200 lots, with plans for an additional 2,000 to 3,000 lots.