Melcor Communities

 

story by Alex Frazer-Harrison

 For Melcor Developments Ltd., creating new neighbourhoods in Airdrie is a natural extension of its business, which has stretched across Alberta and into B.C.

After developing Stonegate on the city’s north end, since 2005 Melcor has been the driving force behind King’s Heights, a growing residential community near Airdrie’s southern gateway.

“We’ve been around since 1923,” says development manager Karmen Chanasyk. “Our head office is in Edmonton, but we have offices in Red Deer, Lethbridge, Calgary and Kelowna.”

Melcor focuses on developing and selling residential and commercial parcels to builders, rather than doing the construction itself. The company doesn’t just confine itself to the larger centres; Chanasyk says Airdrie was a perfect fit for Melcor.

“Airdrie offers so many opportunities to the starter market – people looking for the small-town feel, but still want to be close to all the amenities,” she says. “Airdrie has become the community where people can experience this.”

Melcor is currently in its 10^th phase of King’s Heights, with about 150 acres left to develop. “We’re not even halfway through that development,” notes Chanasyk.

“Even last year, which was a considerably slow year, our builders still did reasonably well out there,” she adds. “King’s Heights has become a desirable community.”

Chanasyk says a key to this appeal was in collecting a team of homebuilders “that knows the Airdrie market better than anyone.” This list includes Airdrie-based McKee Homes, Loreck Homes, Jayman MasterBUILT, Reid Built and Shane Homes in single-family, as well as Avalon Master Builder, Beattie Homes and Reid Built covering multi-family projects.

“It was important to bring together some of the smaller builders and the bigger builders to build a community geared toward different buyers,” says Chanasyk.

Looking to the future, Melcor is in the early stages of developing Kingsview Market, a commercial development on Yankee Valley Boulevard near the new interchange with Highway 2, and it also has additional land holdings both inside and outside Airdrie’s boundaries awaiting future development.

Chanasyk says her company enjoys a good working relationship with City administration, and hopes to support the community for a long time to come. Melcor has sponsored the Festival of Lights as well as last year’s Airdrie Air Show, and also sponsors local hockey and ringette teams.

“We think this kind of support is an important element of building in a community like Airdrie,” says Chanasyk. “Some of our engineers live out in King’s Heights and a lot of our contractors have bought [homes] in Airdrie.”

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