City Builders: The Maleks, the Olympics, and a Historic Gift to Vancouver

Vancouver developers Peter and Shahram Malek have lost two great fortunes, both times at the hands of a hostile government. First, as young men in the flush of success, they were forced from Revolutionary Iran, leaving behind the massive construction and development business built by their father. Second, and more surprisingly, after rebuilding in Vancouver, to the point that they could deliver an internationally admired 80-acre, 1.5 million-square-foot Athletes Village in time for the 2010 Olympics, and the City pushed the project into insolvency and seized everything but the Maleks’ own homes.

Either disaster would have ruined less resilient players. The Maleks, however, stand triumphant, and their company, Millennium Development Corporation, continues to enhance their chosen home of Metro Vancouver. When they found themselves attacked, rather than thanked, they never faltered. They remain - greatly to the benefit of their fellow citizens - city builders.

Richard Littlemore is an author, journalist, speechwriter, and consultant who specializes in issues including urban planning and development, academic affairs, sustainability, and climate change. Recent books include: Building Community: Defining, Designing, Developing UniverCity, for Gordon Harris (with whom he is also writing the upcoming Urban Waste Land); The Fight for Beauty, and five other volumes for Westbank developer Ian Gillespie; and the award-winning Climate Cover-up, for former David Suzuki Foundation Chair James Hoggan.