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Steadfast Resource for an Evolving Industry BOMA Toronto Celebrates 90th Anniversary
July 2007
By Barbara Carss
The Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) of Greater Toronto has followed a course somewhat like that of the city it calls home - evolving from a relatively homogenous group with similar experiences and perspectives to a diverse, multidisciplinary organization offering a network of expertise in almost every aspect of real estate development, investment, management, operations, marketing and communications. Yet some themes seem timeless as BOMA Toronto marks its 90th anniversary this year.
Managers and operators contemplating soaring energy costs and tenants who have not yet embraced the culture of conservation might reflect on the challenges that BOMA Toronto's very first members faced when the government of the day invoked "heatless Mondays" as a response to wartime coal shortages. While drafting and updating pandemic preparedness plans, BOMA members in 2007 can also think of their predecessors responding to the Spanish influenza epidemic, which struck half the city's population, when the chapter was barely a year old.
Creating and maintaining a city's building stock is an achievement worth celebrating. Throughout its history, BOMA members have provided the space for generations of Torontonians to live, work and prosper. BOMA members have forged the physical shape of the city and today they are playing a leading role in rethinking and recalibrating how the built and natural environments interact within the city.
Membership has almost tripled during the past 25 years to reach today's tally of about 750. This includes property management and real estate professionals who continue to make up more than two-thirds of the members, as well as about 220 allied members from various service industries to the real estate sector.
Michael Miceli, Senior Vice President, Property Management, with Retirement Residences REIT is the current president.
LAUNCHED IN A ERA OF CHANGE
BOMA Toronto came into existence in the same year as the National Hockey League, which launched its inaugural season in 1917-18 with the Toronto Arenas carrying local hopes against the Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Wanderers and Ottawa Senators. It was also a year of firsts for at least half of Ontario's electors when Premier William Howard Hearst granted women the right to vote in recognition of their contribution to the war effort.
At the time, Toronto boasted a population of about 500,000. Exhibition Place had been transformed into a military camp, through which approximately 70,000 Torontonians made their way to war. Two major landmarks - Union Station and the Bloor Viaduct - were under construction, while the new Toronto Harbour Commission Building opened its doors on what was then the edge of Lake Ontario. Beyond the waterfront, however, the city was dry. Prohibition had been declared one year earlier.
In an overview of office development in Toronto in the years 1834 to 1984, historians Gunter Gad and Deryck Holdsworth provide some insight into the dealings of BOMA Toronto's earliest members. By 1917, the core of today's downtown financial district was already entrenched in the area around King Street West and Bay Street, having relocated from the city's original mercantile area east of Yonge Street a couple of decades earlier. Banks and insurance companies were staking out a prominent place in the market - developing impressive buildings that were oversized for their needs on which to hang their corporate names, and then renting out the excess space to multiple tenants.
A few of the office buildings from the era - 36 Toronto Street, 302 Bay Street and 1 King Street West - still exist today, as does the Toronto Harbour Commission building, which currently houses the Toronto Port Authority. However, lake infill has moved the waterfront several hundred metres to the south, and millions of square feet of commercial and high-rise residential development now lie between the Harbour Commission building and the shoreline.
NETWORKING AND KNOWLEDGE
Longtime members like Bill Garland, a past president of BOMA Toronto, BOMA Canada and BOMA International, and Chuck Stradling, a past president of BOMA Toronto and the current Executive Vice President of the association, had professional development motives for joining BOMA Toronto in the early 1980s. Stradling, who was a property manager for GO Transit at the time, had no real familiarity with the organization when he was encouraged to attend a BOMA district conference held in Toronto. "I was just blown away by the value of the conference and the people," he recalls.
Similarly, Garland, who is currently the Managing Director of Daniels Associates Inc., a consulting firm specializing in building operations and cleaning services, was looking for resources and peers within an industry that he was then new to.
"It was primarily for education," he says. "And it has definitely delivered both the networking and the knowledge."
BOMA is the delivery agent for formal professional accreditation, facilitating classroom studies for approximately 300 enrollees in Real Property Administrator (RPA) and Facility Management Administrator (FMA) courses every year. It also organizes two highly attended annual educational seminars, the Energy & Environment Forum and the Emergency Management Forum.
Monthly meetings feature speakers on timely industry-related topics, while three suburban breakfasts per year move the venue for information sharing from downtown Toronto to a location in the outlying GTA. BOMA committees focus on emerging and ongoing issues and have worked together to produce guidance documents and educational materials for the entire membership, such as the recent comprehensive checklist for pandemic preparedness and planning.
"BOMA has always been the most relevant association for me personally, in terms of networking in the early days of my career, and now that I am in senior management, in terms of the benefits to my staff," observes Cheryl Gray, Senior Vice President, National Real Estate Services, with Bentall Capital LP and the 2007 recipient of the BOMA Toronto's President's Award. "It provides a lot of educational events that are extremely relevant and it's at the forefront in getting expert resources. It's also an association I can go to, to push leadership issues."
ADVOCATE FOR THE INDUSTRY
Advocacy has become an increasingly important element of the organization's activities as governments at all levels introduce a barrage of new regulatory requirements with implications for the industry. Escalating environmental concerns, potential energy shortages, rapid advancements in telecommunications and information technology, a problematic property tax system, and previously unforeseen health, safety and security risks are now reshaping the way that building owners and mangers conduct business.
Already well placed as a facilitator of information sharing within the industry, BOMA Toronto has emerged more prominently as a communicator on the industry's behalf - conveying knowledgeable insight of how government decisions affect living and working environments for millions of residents and employees in the GTA. "In 2004, the Board of BOMA Toronto held a strategic planning sessions, which resulted in us deciding to become more market-focused and focused on advocacy, communication and getting our name in front of people," Stradling recounts.
For example, BOMA Toronto has taken on a leading role in energy issues. It lobbied for consistent policies for security deposits in setting up accounts with local distribution companies (LDCs) and successfully challenged conditions of service that would have required landlords to co-sign their tenants' applications for service. BOMA Toronto worked behind the scenes to push for the Independent Electricity System Operator's (IESO) emergency load reduction program, which was introduced in the spring of 2006 as an alternative to voltage reductions when soaring demand creates the threat of power outages. The association was a proponent of a proposed electricity generating facility on the Toronto Portlands, and it is managing a $75-million energy retrofit incentive program from the Ontario Power Authority with the goal of cutting energy consumption in Toronto's commercial sector by 150 megawatts by 2010.
Fittingly for a local association that was known until 1944 as the Building Owners and Managers of Ontario, BOMA Toronto is now advancing a new province-wide organization that can be the voice of the industry at Queen's Park. "We're looking at it being an umbrella organization and we're working with BOMA Ottawa to bring this all together," Stradling reports.
INNOVATION AND COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP
In 1999, BOMA Toronto launched an offshoot of The Office Building of the Year (TOBY) Awards, which have traditionally been sponsored by BOMA throughout North America. Rather than choosing a single winner in the 11 TOBY categories, which would then proceed to national and possibly international level competitions, BOMA Toronto opted to recognize all buildings that achieved a prescribed level of excellence. This new approach was largely a response to general market doldrums in the 1990s, but it has since dovetailed with other initiatives such as BOMA Canada's efforts to institute ongoing performance monitoring through its Go Green program.
"By the late '90s we had a bit of an issue because of the lack of new buildings constructed in Toronto. There were really very few buildings taking part in the TOBYs," Stradling notes. "The TOBYs kind of went into a hiatus, but we've found that after a few years, a huge amount of interest was generated in the TOBYs again, in part because of the success of the Certificate of Excellence program. So now we've reintroduced the TOBY and taken it to a whole new level. I think we've really raised the bar."
Prospective participants will soon be able to use an interactive on-line version of the Certificate of Excellence somewhat similar to the format for the Go Green program. Meanwhile, BOMA Atlantic and BOMA Edmonton have introduced their own Certificate of Excellence programs. "That's one obvious example where BOMA Toronto has been a leader," Garland says.
It has also been a longstanding contributor to the Toronto community. In 2005-2006, BOMA Toronto raised $80,000 and supplied volunteer labour to build a home through Habitat for Humanity, while also supporting the Yonge Street Mission and continuing a decade-long commitment to the Children's Aid Society. Past charitable efforts include fundraising for both the Hospital for Sick Children and the Princess Margaret Hospital.
"We rotate the charities we support every two or three years," Stradling explains. However, at least one will be ongoing well into the future. A $100,000 endowment established with the profits from BOMA Toronto's successful turn as the host of BOMA Canada's annual conference and exposition, BOMEX(, in 2000, provides four annual scholarships for students in Ryerson University's Business Management program.
FUN AND FRIENDSHIP
Networking with peers has led to lasting friendships and a lot of good times along the way. Gray points to "Band Aid" - a fundraiser for Habitat for Humanity that enlisted musical talent from the chapter's own ranks - as a good example.
"That's what makes the association fun," she says. "It's a work hard, play hard scenario."
Other popular social events include the annual golf tournament, ski day and the recently instituted Summer Schmooze. Plus, the BOMA Awards Excellence Dinner is a yearly celebration of achievements when the association hands out Certificates of Excellence, the TOBY awards, the Earth Award for environmental sustainability, the Pinnacle Award for service excellence and the President's Award for an individual contribution to BOMA and the real estate community.
A special 90th anniversary celebration is planned for September 20 in conjunction with the closing events of BOMEX( 2007, which is slated for Toronto again this year. Appropriately, the festivities will be held at 1 King Street West - one of a handful of remaining office buildings that date back to BOMA Toronto's beginnings.
Over the years, some traditions have been set aside - such as in 1957, when members agreed to discontinue the singsongs that had been a part of their monthly meetings - and new traditions have been established - such as the target for a female president at least every third term.
Staying relevant for 90 years is obviously accomplished by changing with the times, but BOMA Toronto has also served a consistent purpose. "We have new people coming into the industry and I think we are providing a really good resource for them to learn about the business and to network," Garland says.
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