There are plenty of condo builders of Chinese, European, and Indian heritage in Metro Vancouver. But there’s only one from the Philippines who’s heading a large Vancouver-based development company: Manila-born Macario (Tobi) Reyes.

He moved to Canada with his family at the age of four, growing up downtown. He majored in history and psychology at Queen’s University in Ontario and says he ended up in the real-estate business by accident.

It came after approaching an agent about a warehouse in the Mount Pleasant industrial area in 2002.

"The agent said the property was available and asked if I would like to put in an offer," Reyes recalled in a phone interview with the Straight. "I didn't even know what putting in an offer meant, to be honest."

He rounded up three friends and classmates and they shared the burden. He learned the language of the development industry and was thrilled when Vancouver's Olympic bid was successful, because it meant that property would become more valuable.

Reyes and his partners assembled two other nearby parcels over the next decade before selling it for a tidy profit.

"Among all our original partners, I was the only one who really went into development pretty seriously afterward."

Reyes is a trailblazer not only because he’s a Filipino Canadian in the highly competitive downtown condo market; a company that Reyes founded, PortLiving, is developing the tallest hybrid wood-and-concrete building in North America.

Terrace House was designed by celebrated Japanese architect Shigeru Ban.

The 19-storey project is under construction beside the Arthur Erickson–designed Evergreen Building in the 1200 block of West Pender Street.

“I was a big fan of Shigeru Ban,” Reyes said. “In 2014, I just randomly sent him an email when we got the property under contract. And, luckily, he accepted the email and accepted the project. He’s the one who introduced the idea of mass timber [buildings] back when no one was really doing it.”

Terrace House was going to be the world’s tallest timber building at 71 metres until it was eclipsed by an 85.4-metre wood tower in Norway.

Reyes acknowledged that it was a big risk proceeding with a 19-storey wood-concrete hybrid building in the downtown core, and he’s pleased that his company has already sold three-quarters of the units.

PortLiving has completed five projects, according to Reyes, and plans 12 more, including two in Toronto.

His long-term goal is to include a Vancouver community centre for Filipino Canadians in one of his buildings—something he has discussed with Mayor Kennedy Stewart and the city’s general manager of urban design, Gil Kelley.

“Initially, I was hoping for Mount Pleasant because there’s the historical connection to old Filipino communities there,” Reyes said.