One of Canada’s best-known affordable-housing developers will design almost every new building up to 18 storeys, using mass timber, betting its forward pipeline on engineered wood and off-site manufacturing. That is according to Windmill Developments’ new chief executive, Jeremy Reeds, who told Connect CRE Canada that cross-laminated timber and prefabricated systems will account for a large share of the company’s future portfolio.
Reeds, who Windmill appointed as chief executive in April, said any project up to 18 storeys is now being designed with mass timber in mind, with cross-laminated timber set to feature across much of the affordable-housing specialist’s pipeline. The shift extends a prefabricated building approach that the company has developed with British Columbia’s Intelligent City.
Working with Intelligent City, Windmill has built prefabricated floor and exterior wall systems that integrate structural, electrical and HVAC components off-site before the modules reach the construction site. Reeds said the method can sharply shorten construction timelines whilst cutting embodied carbon, improving operational efficiency and trimming costs tied to scheduling and delivery.
The clearest example to date is in Toronto, where Windmill’s nine-storey, 60-unit rental building at 230 Royal York is scheduled to begin occupancy in August. Reeds pointed to the project as a marker of the company’s growing reliance on engineered timber. Another marker is taking shape in Ottawa, where Windmill is redeveloping a former Korean church site into a roughly 200,000-square-foot project with 296 rental units, about 25 per cent of which are designated affordable housing. The development will retain portions of the church facade and fold them into the new podium structure.
Reeds said the church redevelopment reflects a longstanding Windmill approach of partnering with churches and non-profit organisations to draw value from ageing properties whilst keeping community uses intact.
A second Ottawa-area project, Parkway House, is a partnership with a non-profit supporting adults with disabilities, with the first phase carrying 266 units that local non-profit Nesting Ground will own and operate. The two developments point to a delivery model Windmill wants to take national.
Reeds, who joined Windmill in 2019 as finance director and has since served as partner, chief financial officer and chief operating officer, was promoted to president in 2024 under the company’s succession plan. He succeeded founder Jonathan Westeinde as chief executive in April, with Westeinde moving to the role of executive chair.
Reeds said his longer-term goal is to build on Windmill’s two-decade record in sustainable development and widen its national operations, with the developer “looking very closely at other key markets” beyond Ontario over the next five to 10 years.
Mass timber will carry much of that expansion, with Windmill planning to specify engineered wood and cross-laminated timber on developments well beyond its Ontario base. Reeds said the company measures its progress less by what it delivers alone than by how far it can shift the wider sector.
