Discover Canada’s 1st Healthy Longevity Village – Vulcan, Alberta – Canada’s Podcast

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[00:00] SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Canada's Entrepreneur. Where we talk to the entrepreneurs who are making it happen
[00:05] SPEAKER_02: across Canada and deliver the news, trends, knowledge and opinions from entrepreneurs and business
[00:13] SPEAKER_00: influences across the country. Futureville. Building Canada's first healthy longevity village.
[00:20] SPEAKER_00: Go to futureville.com to learn more. Hello, I'm Mario Tonoguzi,
[00:25] SPEAKER_03: managing editor of Canada's Entrepreneur. Joining me today is Angela Fei, who is founder and
[00:31] SPEAKER_03: development director of Futureville. Mixed youths development site in Vulcan Alberta. We're going
[00:38] SPEAKER_03: to talk about how unique this is, but thanks Angela for joining us today. Thanks for having me,
[00:45] SPEAKER_03: Mario. Look forward to it. Let's talk first of all a little bit about yourself and tell me a little
[00:52] SPEAKER_03: about yourself and then what's driving you on this specifically about this project.
[00:59] SPEAKER_01: I think the biggest motivation was during COVID. I joined a business community that was, had a
[01:08] SPEAKER_01: lot of influencers in it that talked about health and longevity. And they said that the first person
[01:13] SPEAKER_01: to live to who will live to be 200 was born. And my competitive nature jumped in and said,
[01:19] SPEAKER_01: listen, if somebody has already been born, we've lived to be 200. I want to live to be 147.
[01:24] SPEAKER_01: At the time, that was 100 years from now, because there's a whole lot going on in the world, and I
[01:28] SPEAKER_01: want to, I'm excited about what's coming down the pipeline. So what better way to surround yourself,
[01:34] SPEAKER_01: or to inspire something that's beyond your comfort zone and is to surround yourself with people
[01:40] SPEAKER_01: who are on this similar quest. I'm excited because I'm a personal quest for health and longevity
[01:45] SPEAKER_01: myself, and I would love to live in an environment where other people are doing similar things.
[01:52] SPEAKER_01: So I have been an entrepreneur myself, I've run my own business for the last 20 years.
[01:58] SPEAKER_01: And right now, I'm doing some fun things. We're selling holograms. And future bill is really my
[02:03] SPEAKER_01: big dream to be able to empower other people to be their own developer. Create a village where they
[02:11] SPEAKER_01: can attract people of like mind that are on a similar quest and really become their own
[02:18] SPEAKER_01: economic development engine in a village. So that's where I'm at. And the best opportunity is
[02:25] SPEAKER_01: to build themselves and show people that it can be done. Okay, so it's looking at the screen,
[02:31] SPEAKER_03: and it looks like it's a yellow plot of land over your right shoulder. That's right.
[02:37] SPEAKER_03: Okay, so tell us about the concept and obviously it's quite unique.
[02:47] SPEAKER_03: But what do you anticipate that eventually will go there?
[02:52] SPEAKER_01: So the twist that we have on any other development is twofold is we have bought the land ourselves so
[03:02] SPEAKER_01: that we have the flexibility to either do an asset sale or a share sale or with the right
[03:11] SPEAKER_01: public or institutional partner, we can long-term lease it. And so that flexibility allows for
[03:20] SPEAKER_01: an awful lot of people to consider this as a viable option. The health and longevity twist
[03:28] SPEAKER_01: is really coming from my knowledge and awareness in wellness real estate. I've been following
[03:35] SPEAKER_01: this trend for the last five or six years really since the start of COVID. And it is fastest
[03:42] SPEAKER_01: growing real estate niche. So there is a lot added to show that people are, you know, will pay a
[03:50] SPEAKER_01: premium. So there's a premium both for developers and for renters to offer wellness, health
[03:56] SPEAKER_01: wellness services. And that if we build from the get go the theme around health and wellness
[04:04] SPEAKER_01: that is a big twist in this development. And then we've added in some partnership incentives.
[04:14] SPEAKER_01: We've got some unique partnerships. I can tell you the detail. We've got it, Mark, ready in a
[04:19] SPEAKER_01: development offer. But the town of Vulcan is doing an incentive to do we sold improvements as well.
[04:24] SPEAKER_01: And the fun part for us is we've actually, we're in the top 100 global teams in the
[04:32] SPEAKER_01: expand to ex-price health span prize. So we're actually aiming to prove that we can add 10 healthy
[04:39] SPEAKER_03: years onto residents and visitors' lives. So in the vision, besides what you will see in terms
[04:49] SPEAKER_03: of residences there, like what else would you think we'll see there?
[04:56] SPEAKER_01: Well, we, so the pre-proved area structure plan is primarily for resident potential. That's
[05:02] SPEAKER_01: the 300, but it is direct control zoning. And that was intentional on our part.
[05:08] SPEAKER_01: Again, because we have a lot of flexibility in what we put there. Our proposed improvements
[05:14] SPEAKER_01: include a hotel and hospitality side of things that is primarily because there's already been a
[05:20] SPEAKER_01: hotel feasibility study done in the area. And there's already unmet demand of 58 to 62 percent
[05:27] SPEAKER_01: based on the existing status of the community. So we know that by adding extra what I'll call
[05:37] SPEAKER_01: destination features, this would be a health and wellness, a clinic or resort or destination
[05:45] SPEAKER_01: where people can come and get treatments and diagnostics and that they can't get other wells,
[05:51] SPEAKER_01: or will at least have a really good kick at the can of the waiting lists for proactive health services.
[05:59] SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it is literally we're looking for the resort style village is the essence of what
[06:07] SPEAKER_01: will be there between hospitality, commercial, residential, and then the health and wellness services.
[06:12] SPEAKER_03: Let me just before I forget. Let me ask you about Vulcan itself. You know, obviously beyond your
[06:19] SPEAKER_01: connection to that it's a town, right? It is a town. It's a small town. We're getting town,
[06:29] SPEAKER_03: city, village. Okay, so the town of Vulcan, besides your connection, what makes this a compelling
[06:37] SPEAKER_03: site and then why is this a nice site for something like this? I think I have an advantage of
[06:44] SPEAKER_01: having traveled globally sometimes. You know, your own hometown. Sometimes you don't see
[06:49] SPEAKER_01: all of the amazing amenities in and for a small town. The actual town population is only 1800. It
[06:59] SPEAKER_01: has a catchment of about 4200 people in the area, but it's a one hour easy commute to Calgary,
[07:07] SPEAKER_01: which, you know, has over a million people. You're very familiar with Calgary. It's one hour
[07:12] SPEAKER_01: commute to Lethbridge, which is another major urban center only an hour away. So just being in the
[07:19] SPEAKER_01: middle of these two urban centers makes it an easy commute. Remote workers can be there. If you
[07:27] SPEAKER_01: work in the city, you can, you know, live in Vulcan and have an easy commute. The features of the
[07:35] SPEAKER_01: town itself, however, are pretty unique. There is an 18-hole golf course and our property actually
[07:41] SPEAKER_01: has about 200 meters of golf, golf course frontage, which is that section there. And so, and there's a
[07:51] SPEAKER_01: brand new outdoor pool. It is, it was one of the first communities in Canada to get, you know,
[08:00] SPEAKER_01: high-speed internet back in the day. So it has always been wired for high connectivity.
[08:07] SPEAKER_01: And the fun play is that we are the Star Trek capital, so we have been renowned as that destination
[08:16] SPEAKER_01: and have that play on, there's a lot of Star Trek themes that we can build on. So we're going,
[08:22] SPEAKER_01: we're building on that theme with living long and prospering.
[08:27] SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm. So speaking of which, tell me why wellness real estate is important right now.
[08:34] SPEAKER_00: Futureville. Building Canada's first healthy longevity village. Go to futureville.com to learn more.
[08:42] SPEAKER_01: So what's in your home? What's in your community? The sense of safety and security and
[08:48] SPEAKER_01: knowing your neighbors, the social element of community where, you know, like I said, you know
[08:56] SPEAKER_01: your neighbors, you might have multi-family generational knowledge. The kids can safely walk to school.
[09:04] SPEAKER_01: There is a lot of recreation aspects built into the environment, so it's health and wellness
[09:11] SPEAKER_01: by environmental design. And in this day and age, there's such a, you know, there's a rise in
[09:18] SPEAKER_01: chronic illness right now. There's an aging population. There are, you know, there is a bit of a
[09:25] SPEAKER_01: crisis of housing affordability right now. So if you mix all of those challenges that we're facing
[09:34] SPEAKER_01: into having a dedicated proactive health and longevity village, we have a, and I'll describe that
[09:43] SPEAKER_01: as it's the health and longevity and laughter and well-being is is infections. So while there's a
[09:50] SPEAKER_01: chronic rise in illnesses, we believe that this is the counter-proposal right? If we can make health
[09:58] SPEAKER_03: and longevity at home easy, that's our goal. Okay, why is this like compelling by, say, for
[10:08] SPEAKER_01: investors or just buyers? And so right now we're in the business to business phase of the
[10:16] SPEAKER_01: development. So we have affordability. This is a, this is a construction ready, politically
[10:26] SPEAKER_01: willing development site. The 53 acres is available right now. We have a various sort of timeline
[10:33] SPEAKER_01: of trying to get a detailed development plan ready and approved by April 2026. And we have a
[10:39] SPEAKER_01: a development, I'll call it a development team on the ground here that will actually help fast
[10:46] SPEAKER_01: track the approvals on the ground. So for a developer that is frustrated or tired by long timelines
[10:55] SPEAKER_01: and, you know, having to do amendments to zoning, we have all of that covered.
[11:01] SPEAKER_03: Okay, and so this is much bigger than just a straight landscape, right? It's, you know,
[11:07] SPEAKER_03: what's the bigger picture here? And for people to get involved, like, you know, what's the bigger
[11:14] SPEAKER_01: picture for them? So the, if we talk just sticking to the business to business, our goal is that
[11:20] SPEAKER_01: this is a prototype village. So if we can, if we can do this here in this, in this environment,
[11:26] SPEAKER_01: we can scale it. So we're, you know, within the hotel and the accommodations section, we imagine
[11:34] SPEAKER_01: having people coming in and seeing the different, you know, sustainability, different types of
[11:40] SPEAKER_01: homes. So showcase homes, the actual utilities of the village itself, we imagine being very
[11:48] SPEAKER_01: highly sustainable. And even just the dynamics of the design, Mario, we want people to see that a,
[11:56] SPEAKER_01: I'll call it a manufactured blue zone for the people who are familiar with that,
[12:03] SPEAKER_01: is where the milk health can be within easy walking distance. We want people to be able to experience
[12:11] SPEAKER_01: it. We want them to get excited about it. And then we want to be able to say, here is the model
[12:15] SPEAKER_01: that worked. And so if we can find the right company or development partner, we know that our goal,
[12:23] SPEAKER_01: our goal at future village to actually go out and source additional lands of similar
[12:28] SPEAKER_01: ilk that we can fast track development in other locations as well.
[12:34] SPEAKER_03: Okay, last question I have for you, Angel is, I guess, how do people get involved? How do people
[12:43] SPEAKER_03: reach out to you, find out more information they're interested in any aspect of the development?
[12:52] SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Mario. I'm right now, our focus, I mean, from consumer point of view, I do get a lot
[12:57] SPEAKER_01: of people calling me say, when can I get a house? Right? It's, of course, we have, you know, we will,
[13:03] SPEAKER_01: we will take your, your contact details and we will be working with people now. We've actually
[13:11] SPEAKER_01: got one program running, which is the test trial with the, with the help spend express to actually
[13:17] SPEAKER_01: add 10 healthy years under your life. You'd get involved with us in the short term or not.
[13:22] SPEAKER_01: And we'll take your contact details and we're aggregating the list of, of interested
[13:27] SPEAKER_01: end buyers and end consumers for homes and then homes and lots. However, right now, our primary
[13:33] SPEAKER_01: focus is finding that developer. So developer or developer builder. So whether it's a company with a
[13:39] SPEAKER_01: real estate, you know, pillar in there where they're building hubs, we want to talk to you. We've
[13:47] SPEAKER_01: got several builders that have expressed interest in doing some homes. So right now, the best
[13:55] SPEAKER_01: way to get a hold of us is to actually come through Canada's entrepreneur. So we are, we've done
[14:02] SPEAKER_01: something a little bit different. We're doing for sale by owner. We've partnered with Canada's
[14:06] SPEAKER_01: entrepreneur because we know that they have an amazing network of like mines and a great network
[14:11] SPEAKER_01: for us Canada. So we are setting up a landing page and our Visited View will direct there and
[14:18] SPEAKER_01: from there, we'll take expressions of interest from business partners. Okay, wonderful. Thanks so
[14:26] SPEAKER_03: much, Angela, for joining us today. Thanks, Mario. Appreciate your support. Okay, that was Angela
[14:32] SPEAKER_03: Fei, who is the founder and development director of Futureville, a mixed use development site in
[14:39] SPEAKER_03: Volcan Alberta. I'm Mario Toneguzi, managing editor of Canada's Entrepreneur. Futureville,
[14:45] SPEAKER_00: building Canada's first healthy longevity village. Go to futureville.com to learn more. Canada's
[14:53] SPEAKER_02: entrepreneur, where we talk to the entrepreneurs who are making it happen across Canada and deliver
[14:59] SPEAKER_02: the news, trends, knowledge and opinions from entrepreneurs and business influences across the
[15:07] SPEAKER_02: country.