Chat in upscale real estate circles in Toronto is about the man behind the scenes of a controversial redevelopment proposed for Toronto's tony Rosedale commercial strip. The mixed-use proposal includes a 38-storey tower -- that's the controversial part -- though many expect the tower will be reduced in height as the project moves through the approval process.
The front men for the redevelopment -- Paul Oberman and Mitchell Cohen of privately owned Woodcliffe Corp. -- are well known to area residents after a nearby restoration of a heritage property, the Summerhill train station. Less known, however, is Ronald Kimel. He was a financial backer of the well-received train station redevelopment and is linked corporately to Woodcliffe -- notably, its executive vice-president is also the president of one of Mr. Kimel's companies, Urbanfund Corp.
Mr. Kimel is said to be something of a real estate genius. When Mr. Oberman went looking for funding for the train station project, the land parcel was a complicated mess of rights of way and hazards associated with an active rail line. But Mr. Kimel reportedly took one look at it and grabbed the opportunity offered by the unique site. "He has a nose for real estate like nobody else," one development industry insider told Nobody's Business.
The publicly traded Urbanfund is just one of Mr. Kimel's business concerns; another is the fabric retailer, Fabricland. But his principal vehicle is the privately held Westdale Properties. Its website boasts more than 6,000 residential units and 2.7 million square feet of commercial properties in Eastern and Central Canada. As well, Mr. Kimel is said to have extensive interests in the United States, notably Texas. A lawyer by training, Mr. Kimel is known as a man in his 60s with the lifestyle of a 20-year-old. (Though his constant world travels presumably are on a wealthy businessman's budget rather than that of a young backpacker.)
Flamboyant parties at his Rosedale home are legendary, yet he continues to work out of a basement office at unfashionable Spadina and Adelaide -- even though a cab once smashed through his window.
Unshaven, often dressed in flowered shirts and tooling around Toronto on a Vespa, he is hard to miss at about 6 foot 4. Even so, at a public information meeting late last year held at the Toronto Lawn Tennis Club to inform local residents of the redevelopment proposal, Mr. Kimel reportedly sat unobtrusively in the hallway near the packed meeting room, taking notes. Very few knew who he was and even fewer would have guessed, an insider says. "If he had had a tin cup, you would have put a quarter in it."