With a new city hall opening later this year, downtown Surrey – the working-class neighbourhood formerly known as Whalley – is set to shed the stigma of a bare-knuckle past a gunshot from the industrial and port lands along the Fraser River.
Driving north from the glistening residential towers adjacent to King George SkyTrain and turning right at the down-market Flamingo Motor Hotel, the future is emerging on 12 acres where Charan Sethi, principal of the Tien Sher Group of Companies, is developing Quattro.
Billed as bringing Yaletown to Surrey when sales launched in 2006, Quattro currently boasts 421 low-rise units. When redevelopment of the site completes, the entire property will have a total of 1,900 residential units and commercial space.
On the opposite side of 108 Avenue, Sethi is pursuing Balance – a project with 56 "microsuites," including the smallest condos in Canada at 297 square feet. Critics have billed them as shoeboxes and genie's lamps, noting that microunits may work in Gastown but don't make sense in Surrey, where space isn't at a premium.
Sethi, who brings a salesman's eye and practical attitude to his projects, says the object was to provide affordable units to Surrey (the market's responded by buying 60% of the units at this writing). Plus, he would be willing to live in the units if forced to downsize.
"They kept calling it a 'shoebox' – 'How could you build something so small?'" Sethi said. "I'm a very hands-on person. When we did the space planning, I got really involved in it. I had to see myself living in it."
Moreover, Sethi sees an urban future for a neighbourhood designated by Metro Vancouver as the region's second downtown. He contends that Yaletown – notorious as Boystown on account of the male prostitutes who strolled its streets until condos arrived in the late 1990s – was once as bad, if not worse. Whalley is no different, but more affordable.
"I believe it will leave a very strong legacy for myself, my kids and my grandchildren," he said.
The optimism stems from Sethi's personal experience, which has seen a lot of transformation.
Born in Jalandhar, India, in 1951, Sethi moved to England in 1963, where his father found work as a carpenter. Sethi trained as a machinist, but Britain's economy soon hit a steep decline, and by 1978 there were more than 1.5 million people unemployed.
Sethi brought his wife and two sons to B.C. But if Canada offered more opportunities, options for increasing his income on a machinist's hourly wage were limited. Real estate called.
"As a machinist, there was a limit to how far you could succeed in life. ... You get a fixed wage per hour," he said. "Whereas a real estate agent, you get rewarded for how hard you work."
Putting aside a year's worth of living expenses, he obtained his licence in 1985 and went to work under the Re/Max banner. The first six months were tough. The turning point came when a fellow agent invited him to an open house for a new development.
"I knew exactly what I was talking about, because I knew construction," he said.
The one break led to a 22-year career that ultimately saw him work with developers to assemble land for development.
One of his last deals was brokering Onni's purchase in 2001 of the former BC Packers site in Richmond. The three-year process was onerous, and Sethi's younger son voiced his concerns.
"I wanted to make that big sale, but I had to do more homework for the developer," he said. "My younger son didn't like the pace I was running at."
Sethi set up a development company with his sons Bob and Rocky (now a development manager with Anthem Properties): Tien Sher, or "Three Lions" in his native Punjabi. Single-family development led to townhomes and multifamily sites, including a project in Lytton.
When an opportunity to acquire property at King George Boulevard and 108 Avenue in Surrey became available, Sethi leapt at it. There was political will for change in Whalley, Central City provided a focal point for the area and transit afforded connections to the rest of the region.
Tien Sher's biggest project to date was a 28-unit development, but the new site had the potential for hundreds of units. Sethi turned to Colin Bosa, CEO of Bosa Properties Inc., for advice and was cautioned against going too big, too fast.
"To his credit, and now his benefit, he was very patient with the property," Bosa said.
Veteran development consultant Michael Geller says Sethi's hands-on experience at several levels of the industry has been an asset.
"He's worked the trenches; he's worked with some very professional people," Geller said. "He was involved with Joe Segal and Leon Kahn – and he's obviously learned from them."
Geller said Sethi's handling of a fire that destroyed the second phase of Quattro in October 2008 demonstrated his mettle.
"[The fire] could have been quite disastrous," Geller said, "and yet he's somehow managed to deal with that in a very professional way."
"It's not something we wanted, but you know what you do? Something happens, you've got to deal with it," Sethi said. "The night of the fire, we were out there. I was out there, I spoke to the media. Did I cry? Yes. Was I affected emotionally? Yes, I was."
But his staff pulled together, as did lenders, the neighbourhood and the city.
"It showed me a good part of human nature," he said.
Sethi, in turn, has been active in the neighbourhood, organizing a street party at Quattro each year to foster community.
"When I came to Canada, one of our first nice experiences was a street party," he explained. "A wonderful experience, because the community became closer. ... The closer the community, the more livable. Everybody knows everybody, and those are things that are missing from society sometimes."
