By Andrew Macdonald
Wadih Fares founded WM Fares Group in 1984. He had previously worked with the Irvings pre-cast concrete division in Saint John & Bedford.
Today, WM Fares Group is a leading condo and apartment developer, and also processes applications for other developers – so Fares has a large hand in how the city’s horizon has developed over the decades.
In 2008, when he was inducted into the Business Hall of Fame, his company had to that point built $1-billion in real estate projects.
This included the first apartment building he built in 1989 – partnering with a now-deceased uncle, John Arab at 27 Langbrae Drive in Clayton Park, which he later sold.
Wadih Fares’s first apartment project was built in 1989 in Clayton Park, at 27 Langbrae Drive. Fares partnered with his uncle John Arab. (The Notebook).
In 2002-2003, he developed a condo townhouse development in Chester, known as Chandler’s Cove. His realtor on that development was Francis Fares, who himself would go into major high rise development, including Dartmouth’s King’s Wharf apartment and condo development.
Fares in 2009 acquired the Rockingham South tract in 2009 from the Sobeys, who put in a restricted covenant that Fares could not sell or build projects for competing grocery and corner stores, excluding Loblaw from building on the acreage, off the Dunbrack Road, and near Clayton Park.
Wadih Fares gave The Notebook a two hour tour and lunch this week at his Rockingham South subdivision. He is standing in front of The Knight on Knightridge. (The Notebook).
The Sobeys “were good to deal with” and he did the acquisition with Sobeys real estate executive Joe Fiander.
The ten-year-long build-out of Rockingham South will finish in the fall of 2022, when the neighbourhood will be home to 4,000 residents – the size of a NS town.
It consists of 1,000 apartment units, including two buildings to see occupancy in the fall, with a combined 100-units. In total there have been ten apartment structures built on the site.
Townhouse and single-family housing and low-rise rental buildings at Rockingham South by Wadih Fares. (The Notebook).
There are also 100 townhouses on the tract, and 50 single-family houses were built over the last decade – projects undertaken by Fares’ 34-year-old son Maurice Fares, (see story on Maurice in this edition).
Maurice is poised to become CEO of WM Fares Group when he turns 35, says his father.
Wadih Fares lives around the site of Rockingham South and often considered it primed for redevelopment and began negotiations to buy the land from the Sobeys, at a price that has never been disclosed.
Apartment buildings at Rockingham South, a Wadih Fares development built out over the last decade. (The Notebook).
Each of the apartment units contain first floor commercial pads, and there is a Sobeys-owned Needs corner store at the entrance to the development, where driveways have been built behind the townhouses – there are no driveways in front of the homes.
“Rockingham South has a sense of community”, he says, with different housing stock with small businesses offering gyms, corner store, and other professional services and the subdivision is only a five minute drive from Bayers Lake.
One rental Fares did on the tract is called The Knight On Knight’s Ridge, which is English for the Arabic surname of Fares.
The last of two rentals seeing completion by the fall of 2022 at Rockingham South, a Wadih Fares subdivision, now home to 4,000 residents. (The Notebook).
Fares bought the land in a business partnership with Besim Halef, but bought out the well known commercial development entrepreneur five years ago.
Fares also bought a smaller lot abutting Rockingham South, where he plans 10 townhouse and a 22-storey tower with 104-units.
There is a city park at the tract, and he had planned a hotel – but then Covid arrived, so he went to HRM and rezoned some land for 76 apartment units more apartments.
Perhaps the signature development from WM Fares, which currently manages 1,000 apartments in the city, was the 20082-2009 build of Trillium Condos off Spring Garden Road.
Wadih Fares CEO of WM Fares Group, at Rockingham South, where over the last decade he has built out a new HRM neighbourhood. The building behind him is The Knight On Knightsridge, one of many apartment structures in the neighbourhood, which is near Clayton Park. (The Notebook).
Construction began there in the era of a global credit crunch, when financing was hard to come by – so he partnered with Besim Halef, later buying out is 30% equity in the development.
As Fares tells it, the iconic Empire State Building in New York City was built during the Great Depression.
After the Trillium was built, Fares says it elevated the design of future condo and rental buildings as developers began to take innovative architectural ideas from Toronto.
“Look at the Trillium. It changed architectural styles of new buildings in Halifax. I am very proud of that”, Fares tells The Notebook.
At 64-years of age, Fares has been the Consul General of Lebanon in the Maritimes for the last 26-years.
Wadih Fares built Chester’s Chandler’s Cove in 2002-2003. (The Notebook photo of an artist’s rendering).
While he plans to make his son Maurice CEO of WM Fares Group when the son turns 35 – he is 34 now – Fares tells me: “I feel blessed to have my kids in the business”. Daughter Zana is a construction VP. Her husband, Marc Chouveire also works at the family firm as a construction project manager.
“We’ve come a long way. We are reaping the benefits of our successes now and I feel very blessed to have family involved. It’s a bonus to have children involved”.
Talking about the firm’s early days when was incorporated in 1984, he tells me: “I was fortunate and unfortunate. I did the design work, the drafting, the constructon and went through all the building stages”.
Townhouses at Rockingham South. (The Notebook).
His firm has 50 employees at its Joe Howe Drive HQ, an office low rise building known as St. Lawrence Place, built on the site of a former Roman Catholic Church. There is also a condo complex at the site.
There are also construction managers and apartment supervisors on the company payroll.
Fares gave me a quote about his long-ago journey into becoming an entrepreneur, which I am also going to adopt for my five-year-long media entrepreneurship.
“If I had a boss like me, I’d still have a job as an employee”, says Fares.
There is a Needs and NSLC outlet at Rockingham South by Wadih Fares. (The Notebook).
He notes four or five key members of his team have been with him for 25-years. “They are like my family, very capable and loyal”.
He also singles out Cesar Saleh, his point man to get approvals from HRM.
“Cesar is the best among developers to deal with City Hall”, says Fares.
“I am very fortunate to have the team I have”, he adds, saying he is no longer involved in day to day operations of the company, but meet his team once a week, and does keep an eye on company finances.
“I am as retired as I will be. I am still the old guy”, given his two children work for the firm
Rockingham South is home to 4,000 residents, near Clayton Park. (The Notebook).
The noted developer is also a big supporter of philanthropy and has a relatively new charity org, the WM Fares Family Foundation, “and I want to grow it and do good things”.
His other daughter,Monique, operates a health clinic in a partnership with Dr. John Gillis.
Fares for the last 15-20-years has driven a Land Rover, his current model is a shiny black SUV, with leather seating. “You can drive it for construction or for a weddings”, he says.
Built out over the last decade, there are ten apartment structures and some townhouse and single-family homes at Rockingham South, now home to 4,000 residents near Clayton Park. (The Notebook).
Tomorrow Fares explains why his streets at Rockingham South have been named after trail blazing women.
