After being placed under receivership back in November 2023, Vandyk Properties’ Uptowns and Heartlake projects in Brampton should soon be moving forward toward completion. A series of court documents from earlier this month detail development management contracts that would see a sub-brand of Elm Developments known as Elm Forward oversee the remainder of the projects.
In addition, the court filings say that the receiver, KSV Advisory, has put out an amended Agreement of Purchase and Sale (APS), the standard contract used in presale real estate transactions, to presale buyers, and that those that have not been signed or responded to will have their contracts terminated. An increased purchase price has been offered to some buyers of the Uptowns project specifically. This is per an Ancillary Relief Order sought by KSV in October 2024.
Vandyk’s Uptowns development is set to include around 342 stacked townhomes, and construction had already ground to a halt “for several months” before the receivership order went into effect. Of the total number of units, 329 were pre-sold and subject to pre-sales agreements. Regarding the Heartlake development, it’s set to comprise 200 stacked townhomes, with 109 having been pre-sold. The filings note that construction on Heartlake has not been started.
KSV determined in the fall of 2024 that both the Uptowns and Heartlake projects should be completed in order to “maximize the potential benefits and returns for stakeholders” with help from a third-party development manager. An order to complete construction of Uptowns was issued in September, and an order to complete the construction of Heartlake was issued in October. KingSett Mortgage Corporation — the principal secured creditor of the debtors — is on board with moving the projects forward with Elm on board.
Contracts with Elm were entered into in February 2025 and are now subject to approval from the Ontario courts. The terms of the contract — which are awaiting court approval — dictate that “Elm will act as development manager for the projects, and will provide services relating to, among other things, planning and design, along with overseeing budgeting, funding, and record keeping.”
For the Uptowns project, Elm is set to receive a fixed construction management fee of $2.5 million, to be paid in monthly instalments, an additional fee of 0.2% of total revenues (not including revenues from pre-sales and exclusive of HST), and an incentive payment equal to 50% of profit, payable upon the completion of the project’s final phase. For the Heartlake project, Elm’s contract specifies a fixed construction management fee of $1.5 million (to be paid in monthly instalments), a fee of 0.2% of total revenues (not including revenues from pre-sold units and exclusive of HST), and an incentive payment equal to 50% of profit payable upon the completion of the project’s final phase.
The two projects will be advanced by Elm Forward, which also took over the four-tower Elevate condo project at 1333 Weber Street East in Kitchener last fall while it was under receivership, as previously reported by STOREYS. In a press release at the time, Elm described Elm Forward as a division that "specializes in the construction and development of distressed assets."
The Ontario courts granted formal approvals for the sales of 10 Vandyk Group sites across the Greater Toronto Area — including but not limited to the Uptowns and Heartlake sites in Brampton — in March 2024. The court filings at that time showed that the court-ordered sales of the Brampton properties specifically have been jointly handled by TD Cornerstone Commercial Realty and CBRE. To date, a sale has not been secured.
