An Inspired Beginning

The foundations of The Minto Group were laid in 1955 when four Ottawa brothers, Louis, Gilbert, Irving, and Lorry Greenberg, joined together to start Mercury Homes.

Before long, the brothers began building homes on different sites concurrently. To speed up the construction process, they developed an assembly line approach that was visionary for the times. Before too long, the brothers had purchased their own mill, becoming the first builders in the Ottawa region to produce their own woodwork.

In 1957, the company name was changed to Minto. Within three years, Minto was starting construction on seven quality houses a day with a 72-day completion schedule, an unmatched standard for the time.

Always a leader in design and construction excellence, Minto received the first of a long list of honours in 1962, when it won both national and regional awards in the Canadian Housing Design Council competition.

By 1965, Minto had built more than 5,000 homes in Ottawa and was well on its way to becoming the region’s largest private landlord.

In 1969, Minto introduced a new form of home ownership to Canada -- the condominium -- building the first of many high-rise condominium projects in the Ottawa area.

Expansion and Innovation

In the late 70’s, Minto diversified its holdings and took a tremendous leap forward by expanding into Florida, where the company built almost 17,000 single family homes, condominiums and rental units in Broward and Palm Beach counties.

By 1986, Minto established a toe-hold in Toronto with the construction of Optima on the Park, a luxury condominium project in Scarborough. Two year later, Minto completed a second project, Minto Plaza, in the city’s downtown, and was well on its way to becoming a leading area developer with an expanded portfolio of single family homes and high-rise projects.

Meanwhile in downtown Ottawa, Minto transformed an empty parking lot into Minto Place; a city block size development consisting of two office towers, a 417 unit suite hotel and a two-level retail concourse. Minto Suite Hotel was a huge success and recipient of a CAA/AAA Four Diamond Rating.

During this time, Minto made its first foray into green building, developing the prototype Innova House to showcase state-of-the-art technologies such as solar-generated electricity. The project eventually led to new and innovative approaches in construction so that by the mid 1990’s Minto was one of Canada’s largest home builders to offer R-2000 homes.

Creating Places That Inspire Life

Five decades after building its first home, Minto has grown into an integrated real estate development, construction and management company with operations in Ottawa, Toronto and Florida.

To date, The Minto Group has built more than 67,000 new homes, manages more than 15,000 residential rental homes and apartments, and carries a commercial portfolio of more than 2.5 million square feet of office, retail and industrial space.

In Ottawa, Minto enjoys a large share of the new home market with several new flagship communities in development, including Manotick Mahogany and Arcadia. Construction of a LEED ® Gold candidate office tower adjoining Minto Place will open for business in 2009.

In Toronto, the company recently completed Minto Midtown, comprised of two condominium towers at Yonge & Eglinton. Two more major downtown projects are in development as are three new home communities -- Harvest Hills, Roxborough, and Spring Farm.

With five communities under construction, expansion is underway to bring Minto's award-winning communities to Florida’s West Coast with the launch of Grand Hampton in New Tampa.

Custom homes, master planned communities, high-rise condominiums, rental apartments, furnished suites, executive offices, seminar and meeting rooms and a luxury suite hotel.  Better places that inspire life.

The Minto Group.