Millennium Development

Millennium Development Corp - Vancouver Real Estate developer

There are two kinds of Vancouver Real Estate developers in this town. The first you’ve never heard of. You don’t know their names and you couldn’t identify one of their buildings if they promised you a free condo in it. They build the thousands of apartments and houses that blanket the region.

And then there are those who create monuments. Their work is all around Vancouver. Shahram and Peter Malek, Millennium Development - the brothers who decided they wanted to build Vancouver’s Olympic Village—who wanted it so much they were willing to pay top dollar for the privilege—are definitely members of this second species.



That longing has led the Millennium Development Maleks to what can only be described as Dante’s Inferno: Developers’ Version. In eight months, they’ve been flayed alive as the village’s golden future—an international model of green design embodied in a neighborhood of walkways, plazas, and 1,100 units of architecturally unique housing—has sunk like Atlantis under the rising tide of financial- and housing-market woes.

The story of their financial torment, of the evaporation of financing by Millennium Development U.S. hedge-fund lender, ongoing cost overruns, and a somewhat embarrassing rescue by the city and province, has played out like a disaster movie.


Millennium Development dream project, now valued at over $1 billion, has made them the leading topic of gossip as Vancouver developers, politicians, and city staff debate whether they are incompetent diethers or well-meaning but naïve fellows whose financing and management weaknesses got exposed when the global economy’s tide went out.


Millennium Development Peter and Shahram MalekYazdi didn’t start out in Vancouver bc Canada as glamour-project developers. Their first local construction contract, almost three decades ago, was for the BC Place parkade. The two brothers, newcomers to the city, lost money on it, and the parkade—a piddly million-dollar job—was a comedown for the family.




Development consultant Michael Geller has also seen both sides. Geller negotiated with the Maleks to do one of the projects at University, SFU’s massive housing development. They were hesitant, wanting the university to share the risk of development, but they became convinced to take it on themselves and built, Geller says, a beautiful and innovative project.

The Millennium Development Maleks insist they’ve only ever tried to get a fair deal for themselves. “Because we were in construction before, if something is wrong, we see it right away,” Peter says. “If something is not fair, we see that as well. We expect our contractors to be fair and reasonable. We’re fair with them and we expect them to be fair with us.”


That means the city, risking its credit rating to borrow for the project, is unlikely to give the brothers a very favorable interest rate—just barely favorable enough not to drive them into bankruptcy (which could void the 250 condo presales). That sets the scene for a No Exit drama of the first order. It may look in future months as though it’s about money, but it’s really about control and respect. As many people who’ve been pulled into the Olympic Village orbit have observed, the development has become a Spartan “return with your shield, or on it” scenario for the Maleks.

“I’ve asked Millennium Development the question every which way: ‘If you were given the option to take your $70 million out of this and go home, would you go?’ And they keep saying, ‘No, we have to do this for our business, for our family, for the province, says Ward McAllister, who heads the city-appointed developer committee recruited to monitor the Maleks’ progress. He’s astounded at their doggedness and willingness to gamble everything.

“They’ve got the farm in this deal, completely.” That would be all of their personal and corporate assets—not worth as much as they used to be, as city officials have noted. But still the farm. And why? The pragmatic, and somewhat bemused, McAllister can think of only one reason. “Face. It’s all about face.” VM