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CANADIAN INDUSTRY ONLINE - JULY 2013
C
REATED IN 19 9 3
by the Mar-
tin brothers, Martin Develop-
ments is one of Nova Scotia’s most
successful restoration, contracting, and
construction management companies.
Celebrating 20 years in 2013, there
is a lot of history in Martin Develop-
ments’ growth, and equally as much
history in the projects the company
takes on. The company prides itself
on being able to handle all aspects of
construction from preparing estimates,
securing financing,
hiring sub-trades
and site manage-
ment from demo-
lition to finished
project. Now with
so much promise in
the local economy,
Martin Develop-
ments intends to
build on expertise
and experience to
grow the business.
HISTORY OF THE
BUSINESS
Bill Martin tells CIO that the idea
for the company first hatched when he
had just moved back to the East Coast
after living in various other parts
of Canada (the West, Toronto, etc.)
to work on a single project with his
brother Bruce Martin—a restoration.
Martin moved from Toronto orig-
inally in a temporary capacity to invest
in a local building project, and wanted
to ultimately return to the big city. But
then he fell in love with the area, hav-
ing been born and raised in Cape Bret-
on.
“
We had success with that first
project where we turned a run-down
building into an upscale restoration,”
Martin reflects. “We looked around
and said ‘let’s not go back to work for
someone else, let’s leverage the profit
from this building and invest in an-
other one.’” The company got its start
restoring various buildings in down-
town Halifax. From the early 90s, Mar-
tin Developments grew at a constant
pace, and began branching into com-
mercial work (i.e. restaurants) and the
team at Martin has done some very
interesting projects.
RESTORATION AND COMMERCIAL
WORK
While restoration contracts have
kept the company busy over the years,
Martin notes that “restoration is expen-
sive work, and it’s tough to be compet-
itive doing just that.” He says that the
owner of a building really has to “want
a restored building, because the pay-
off might not work
out for the expense it
will take to refurbish
a site.” Many build-
ing owners rely on
substantial govern-
ment restoration sub-
sidies and otherwise
wouldn’t be able to
complete jobs. “You
may never recover
the price you put into
restoring,” he ex-
plains.
Nevertheless,
Martin Develop-
ments still does res-
toration work, especially with sites in
the downtown core. The company says
that many of the restorations they do
in the downtown core of Halifax “typi-
cally require total new electric and
plumbing systems and updating to
today’s building code standards.” The
company takes “great care to restore
CUSTOM MILLWORK
UNDER THE SKILLED HAND OF THE
COMPANY’S MASTER CRAFTSMAN MARTIN
DEVELOPMENTS CAN BUILD:
•
CUSTOM ENTRANCE SYSTEMS
•
CUSTOM FURNITURE
•
STAIRCASES
•
BOARDROOM AND CUSTOM OFFICE
FURNISHINGS
OTHER SERVICES
