// COMPANY DOSSIER
Southwest Properties
Halifax-based real estate developer, owner and operator of high-quality apartments, condominiums, retail and commercial space, with a portfolio of more than 1,860 rental apartments and condos concentrated in downtown and waterfront Halifax. It develops and manages mixed-use buildings across the apartment, condo, retail, office and hospitality sectors.
📍 Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada✓ 100% first-party verified
// CLIPS FROM Southwest Properties
“with the labor shortage we don't need 10 guys to go into a roof we only need four to five”
“the reason that we never really got approached or never got unionized”
“how do you build people well you have to put them on a pathway of success”
“there's been a couple of buildings that burnt because they were using torches”
“so like when we start the job we fill out the warranty if we're doing a total system warranty”
“we've really haven't been bidding the tendered stuff as much anymore”
“sort of like the Vegas Knights you take all the Misfits and championship team”
“one of the things we did at the hospital we brought in a mini crane”
“I have an uncle that I'm very close to he's a top foreman for ATEC New Brunswick”
// LESSONS FROM Southwest Properties
Join the union once you already exceed their standards — let them run the benefits and training infrastructure you were building anyway.
Entering a trade niche with a single product system (no alternatives) forces focus and builds genuine expertise faster than trying to compete across all formats.
Spend two years working budgets and details with a GC before a tender is issued — early engagement converts relationships into awarded contracts on large complex jobs.
Cross-train roofing and cladding crews so they can shift between scopes — it extends your employment year to 12 months and creates a more flexible, loyal workforce.
Single-ply roofing requires roughly half the crew of torch-on two-ply for equivalent coverage — in a labour shortage, the system that needs fewer people wins.
Avoid racing to the bottom on school tenders — thin margins and government specs combine to make schools consistently unprofitable for specialty subcontractors.
// SELECTED PROJECTS
Cunard Residences
CompletedDeveloper / owner-operator
16-storey, 231 rental units on the Halifax waterfront; contributes ~two acres of new public space (managed by Build Nova Scotia); targeting LEED Gold. Build NS lists completion as October 2024. Named 2025 Development of the Year - High Rise by RHPNS.
Fortuna on Lucknow
In progressDeveloper
174-suite rental residence, studios to three-bedroom. Official groundbreaking December 16, 2025; expected occupancy 2028. Status confirmed in-progress as of the company's Dec 17, 2025 corporate news post. Address listed as 1035 Lucknow on the project site (a Southwest Developments Facebook post says 1055 Lucknow - minor discrepancy, see notes).
Maple
CompletedDeveloper / owner-operator
Won Canadian Federation of Apartment Associations' national Rental Development of the Year 2018; achieved LEED Silver (New Construction) certification in 2022.
Curve at South Park
CompletedDeveloper / owner-operator
Part of the South Park development. Won CFAA National Rental Development of the Year 2020 and IPOANS Development of the Year 2020; LEED Gold certified 2023.
Bishop's Landing
CompletedDeveloper / owner-operator
Southwest's first mixed-use multi-unit building on the Halifax waterfront (2003); 151 waterfront units. Bishop's Landing is a Southwest Properties-operated property (bishopslanding.com is a Southwest-controlled site).
// KEY PEOPLE
// NOTABLE
Cunard Residences was named 2025 Development of the Year - High Rise by the Rental Housing Providers of Nova Scotia (RHPNS).
SOURCE ▸Maple won the Canadian Federation of Apartment Associations' national Rental Development of the Year 2018.
SOURCE ▸The company operates more than 1,860 quality apartments and condos for rent in Halifax.
SOURCE ▸Founder Simon Spatz immigrated to Halifax in 1950 and built the business from a single Tobin Street apartment building, renaming it Southwest Apartments in the late 1960s; son Jim Spatz joined in 1988 and led its expansion into a diversified regional developer.
SOURCE ▸