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A digital newspaper, curated around the community and culture of East Van, by East Van.
We are the crew behind Woodland Block. A crew curated around the community of East Van, for East Van, by East Van.
Our city is brimming with creatives doing incredible things, people with extraordinary visions. And we felt a pull to support and amplify that passion to build homes that matter, to make a positive impact on communities, and to collaborate with people who want the same. Collaborating with the imaginative minds at Ekistics Architecture and House of Bohn, we set out to challenge the design expectations within real estate, together. We wanted to create a community within a community, where residents can be proud to call their home far from cookie-cutter.
Sasha founded First Track on the premise to do things differently — walk the real estate path least taken. Having grown up in one of Vancouver’s most established real estate families, Sasha understands the importance of building lasting communities and the foundations of thoughtful development. Now, with his own family, he strives to build better, together.
On The Weekends:
He’s either whipping around Stanley Park on his bike or being a Whistler ski bunny.
Favourite East Van Spot:
Pepino’s Spaghetti House
Must Order: Pizza and a Negroni
Location: 631 Commercial Dr
Handle: @pepinos
Best Hidden Gem In East Van:
Equinox Gallery is hidden in plain sight.
Famous Quote You Live By:
“Pressure is a privilege.” – Billie Jean King
You Never Leave Home Without:
A positive mindset and good attitude.
How Your Friends And Family Would Describe You:
At my wedding, a friend described me as someone who takes charge and is always there for you when you need it. Always has time for a coffee.
Your First Job:
Washing cars for my dad, then working at Athletes World.
What You Want To Be Known For:
Putting a more youthful and positive spin on development, while also trying to evoke change. I want to be the spark that gets people motivated and excited to do what they do.
Dead Or Alive, Who Would You Have Dinner With:
Frank Sinatra
Matt’s passion for real estate is partly thanks to being born into a long-standing Vancouver real estate family. While he still gets excited about connecting the financial dots between people and projects, he’s also strategizing challenges and is a devoted advocate for charities and politics. He consistently seeks ways to support the wellbeing of Vancouver and those who live here.
On The Weekends:
You’ll find Matt making “the best ever” scrambled eggs for his two daughters.
Favourite East Van Spot:
Renzullo’s! Local Italian legend and owner Franco remembers your name, your order and then some.
Must Order: Americano (aka the best americano in the city)
Location: 1370 Nanaimo Street x Grant
Handle: @renzullofoodmarket
Best Hidden Gem In East Van:
I recently brought my girls to Trout Lake, and it was fantastic. East Vancouver has that great neighbourhood feeling that I just can’t explain and there are so many hidden gems to explore.
You Never Leave Home Without:
My phone – it’s my traveling office and allows me to explore the city and offers me more flexibility throughout my day.
A Show You Could Watch Over And Over Again:
The West Wing and Billions.
Famous Quote You Live By:
“Do the right thing, even though it might be the hardest thing to do.”
Introverted Or Extroverted:
Extroverted.
Your First Job:
Working with my mother, Olga Ilich at her business Suncor Development Corp. I helped her with the marketing and sales, not full responsibility, but great exposure.
Some Of The Ways You Give Back:
I served on the Board of the Richmond Hospital Foundation for 10 years where we raised over $1.3m dollars for mental health. I am passionate about healthcare and sustainability. At First Track, we are always looking for creative ways to give back, most recently our Operation Welcome Home pilot project supporting Ukrainian refugees in Vancouver.
James Evans is a seasoned real estate developer who has developed over 1,000 homes throughout the lower mainland over the past 25 years. His notable East Vancouver projects include The Jeffs Residences, Ella on Nanaimo, and Brookhouse Residences, along with projects currently under construction including Gibson House and Stinson Block. As a valued partner at Woodland Block and proud East Vancouver local, he is committed to ensuring that the building will be an enduring legacy in the community.
On The Weekends:
You can find James fixing or renovating something in his home or learning to play bagpipes.
Favourite East Van Spot:
Kishimoto Japanese Restaurant
Must Order: Spicy Karaage and a Sapporo
Location: 2054 Commercial Dr
Handle: @kishimoto.restaurant
Famous Quote You Live By:
“Illegitimi non carborundum.” (Don’t let the bastards wear you down)
Things You Avoid:
Crowds and public speaking.
How Your Friends And Family Would Describe You:
Quiet and reserved, I guess I’m a bit of an introvert.
What You Want To Be Known For:
Someone who builds memorable projects, like my past heritage projects that I’m really proud of.
What Is Your Superpower:
At my age, getting out of bed in the morning!
Dead Or Alive, Who Would You Have Dinner With:
Robin Williams
What Gets You Out Of Bed Every Morning:
A challenge; I never really know what is going to land on my desk everyday, and I like that.
Karin Bohn is the founder and creative director of the award-winning House of Bohn design studio. She created the interior design firm in 2009, and has since made her mark in many industries including luxury residential, multi-family, restaurants and retail. Karin believes in invoking the unique soul of every project, with each space designed with intention and with her distinct aesthetic that is eclectic, bold, visually exciting and timeless.
Favourite Thing About East Van:
I love the community aspect of East Vancouver, and I also love the up-pretentious nature of the community. It’s a no-BS area of Vancouver, and I love that!
Your Perfect Sunday:
Spending time with my daughter, Madison. I live for the days that I can spend un-interrupted time with her.
When You’re Happiest:
When I’ve just finished my morning routine, which includes hot water, lemon and salt, a yoga session, a journaling session and a meditation.
Your Favourite Quote or Saying:
“Be you, and you can be anything.”
Your First Job:
My very first design job was helping a friend update her studio condo. The scope was changing out the floors, painting and re-arranging the bedroom furniture. It was such a small job, but I loved it, and it set me on the path to where I am today!
You Never Leave Home Without:
My black briefcase. It has all my work gear in it, and I hate to say it, but it even comes with me on Vacation!
One Thing Your Family Has Taught You:
At a young age, my dad said to me “Don’t try, just do it.” From that point on I learned how to have a high-level of competency. Throughout my life I’ve focused more on results than effort, and that’s gotten me where I am today.
The lead architect of Woodland Block, Charles Leman, has more than 25 years of diverse design expertise. Collaborating with his team at Ekistics, including Senna Lee and owner Mark Blackwood, Charles ensures a meticulous and thoughtful approach to the project. His portfolio showcases a wide range of projects, from opera houses to high-rise residential towers and private homes, each requiring a unique design approach and attention to detail. With his wealth of experience and creative vision, Charles ensures that Woodland Block is both visually stunning and functional.
Favourite East Van Spot:
Tacofino Commissary
Must Order: The Crispy Chicken Tacos
Location: 2327 E Hastings St
Handle: @tacofinolovesyou
When You’re Happiest:
Skiing
Best Hidden Gem In East Van:
I wouldn’t claim to be enough of an insider to call it a hidden gem… but Downlow Chicken Shack is really good.
You Never Leave Home Without:
Spectacles, wallet, cell phone and watch. Oh wait… I never wear a watch.
Most Spontaneous Thing You’ve Ever Done:
Wow. The MOST spontaneous thing…though one. Probably something/someone I’ve purposely forgotten about…In recent years…walked-in to the Rickshaw to watch whatever band was playing (it was metal of some kind) late on a Friday night.
Famous Quote You Live By:
“Time moves in one direction, memory another. We are that strange species that constructs artifacts intended to counter the natural flow of forgetting.” – William Gibson
Introverted Or Extroverted:
Intoverted
Your First Job:
Ah humble beginnings… My first real job was a temp assignment. It was a manufacturing job, in a nail mill. I was the guy who counted the nails. You would think I could do better with an Architectural degree, but back then if you couldn’t type 100 words/minute you weren’t considered employable for office positions.
Some Of The Ways You Give Back:
I volunteer. Kids sports clubs, coaching, cooking for the sailing, rugby club.
The developer reserves the right to make changes and modifications to the information contained herein. Maps, views, photography, and renderings are representational only and are not necessarily accurate, and final design, construction, and features may differ. Floor plans, layouts, finishes, prices, and availability are subject to change without notice. Please contact a developer representative for details. E. & O.E.
This is the privacy policy (the “Policy”) of Nanaimo and 10th Limited Partnership. We are committed to protecting your right to privacy when you provide us with personal information. This Policy sets out how we collect and manage personal information, whether that information is collected via our site woodlandblock.com (the “Site”) or otherwise. In this Policy, the terms “you”, “user” and “your” refer to a visitor of our Site or a user of our services provided on the Site or otherwise, including when you register your interest in purchasing one of our properties and use our online portals (collectively, the “Services”) and the terms “we”, “us” and “our” refer to the Nanaimo and 10th Limited Partnership.
Please read this Policy carefully before using our Site or receiving our Services. We may update or modify this Policy at any time by posting our revised policy to our Site. We include a “Last Revised” date in the Policy displayed on our Site. We strongly encourage you to refer back to the Policy periodically to ensure that you stay up to date with our practices and procedures.
By using our Site or requesting or receiving any of our Services, you agree that you have read, understood and agree to be bound by this Policy, including any updates to the Policy.
By submitting personal information to us, including by using our Site or any of our Services, you hereby consent to the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information in accordance with this Policy.
If you do not agree with some or all of this Policy, you must not use the Site, our Services or submit personal information to us.
Our Privacy Officer is generally responsible for ensuring compliance with applicable privacy legislation. The Privacy Officer must approve the policies and practices regulating the governance of personal information. More specifically, this person is responsible for implementing this Policy and ensuring that it is known, understood and applied.
Our employees who have access to personal information or are otherwise involved in the management of such information must ensure its protection and comply with this Policy. The roles and responsibilities of our employees throughout the life cycle of personal information may be specified by other policies as well.
In this Policy, “personal information” means information that can identify an individual, and includes, for example, a person’s name, home address, home phone number, gender, date of birth, language preference, email address, credit card information, or account information. Personal information in Canada does not include information to enable an individual at a place of business to be contacted, such as their name, position name or title, business telephone number, business address, or business email address.
It is important to us that we collect, use or disclose your personal information only where we have your consent to do so or as provided in this Policy. Depending on the sensitivity of the personal information, your consent may be express, implied or deemed. Express consent can be given orally, electronically or in writing. Implied consent is consent that can reasonably be inferred from your action or inaction. For example, when you use our Services, we will assume your consent to the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information for purposes related to the Services or for other purposes identified to you at the relevant time. Deemed consent is consent we assume in the event that you do not exercise an opt-out mechanism offered to you, provided that deemed consent is permitted under applicable laws.
By submitting your personal information to us or obtaining our Services, you consent to the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information in the manner described in this Policy. To the extent that we are required by applicable laws to obtain your explicit consent for the collection, use or disclosure of your personal information in accordance with this Policy, such consent will be requested at the appropriate time. Further, if we plan to use or disclose your personal information for a purpose not previously identified (either in this Policy or separately), we will advise you of that purpose before such use or disclosure. However, we may collect, use or disclose your personal information without your knowledge or consent where we are permitted or required to do so by applicable law or regulatory requirements.
You may change or withdraw your consent at any time, subject to legal or contractual restrictions and reasonable notice, by contacting our Privacy Officer using the contact information set out below. In some circumstances, a change or withdrawal of consent may limit our ability to provide Services to you or your ability to access certain areas of our Site.
We assume, unless you advise us otherwise, that by receiving or having access to a copy of this Policy or by continuing to deal with us, you have consented to the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information as explained in this Policy.
In the course of providing Services, whether through our Site or otherwise, we may collect your personal information.
We will only collect personal information as permitted under the applicable privacy legislation. We may collect information in a variety of ways, including where you:
By submitting information to us, you consent to us collecting your information.
We may also collect aggregate information which tells us about visitors to our Site, but not the identity of those visitors. For example, we may collect information about the date, time and duration of visits and which pages of our Site are most commonly accessed. The purpose of collecting this aggregate information is to help us administer and improve our Site. Data collected through our Site on an anonymous and aggregated basis helps us measure interest in and use of our Site. We reserve the right to provide our analyses based on such anonymous and aggregated data to third parties.
The Site also uses Google Analytics to gather information about users’ usage of our Site. We utilize this information to make educated metric-based decisions to improve the user experience of our Site. You can opt out of Google Analytics tracking by installing the Google Analytics Opt-Out Browser Add-on.
Personal information collected by us is used only for the purposes described in this Policy, or for other purposes which are disclosed to you and to which you consent.
We generally use your personal information to:
We may disclose or share your personal information in the following circumstances:
We may retain your personal information as long as is necessary in order to manage our relationship with you (or fulfill the purposes for which it was collected) or as otherwise permitted by law. We will destroy personal information when it is no longer required for the purposes for which it was collected or as required by applicable law.
We take reasonable steps to ensure that any personal information in our custody is accurate and up-to-date for the purposes for which the personal information is to be used by us. In most instances, we rely on users to notify us of any changes to their personal information provided by them.
Our Site may contain links to other websites. Linked websites are operated by third parties who are responsible for their own privacy practices and you should check those websites for their respective privacy policies.
We use reasonable and appropriate measures designed to help you secure your personal information against accidental or unlawful loss, access or disclosure. Only staff and service providers who have a legitimate business purpose for accessing the personal information collected by us are authorized to do so. Unauthorized use of personal information by anyone affiliated with us is prohibited and constitutes grounds for disciplinary action.
Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed as completely secure. While we strive to protect such information, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information transmitted to us.
You are solely responsible for ensuring that you do not disclose your information to third parties. This includes but is not limited to, ensuring that sufficient security software is installed and running on your computer, smartphone or tablet, that your network firewall is of sufficient quality and that your wireless connection is encrypted to a degree that will prevent third party access.
Personal information collected by us or third parties referenced in this Policy may be stored and processed in another country and by using our Services or the Site, you consent to any such transfer of information outside of Canada. We will use reasonable measures to ensure all personal information is protected, but cannot ensure that the laws of other countries will offer the same level of protection as Canadian laws. By submitting your personal information to us, you hereby consent to the transmission, processing and/or storage of personal information outside of Canada.
In order to improve our Site on an ongoing basis, we may use cookies to track your visit. The Site also uses cookies to provide users with certain features and preference settings.
A cookie is a small amount of data that is transferred to your browser by a web server and can only be read by the Site that gave it to you. It functions as your identification card. It is not a program and cannot be executed as code or deliver viruses.
Cookies can also customize the site to your particular interests or store your personal information – like passwords or user IDs. If a site ever greets you with your name, chances are it’s using a cookie to do so.
Most browsers are initially set to accept cookies. You can set your browser to notify you when you receive a cookie – this gives you the chance to decide whether to accept it. To learn more about cookies and how to change your settings, please use the help function in your browser. The alerts will be quite frequent, however, and may eventually become annoying.
You can use the Site without cookies, but you may have to re-enter information each time you visit. When you visit our Site, Google Analytics adds a cookie to distinguish you from other users and track your behaviour across our Site. We use this information to improve the user experience of the Site. The cookie lasts for up to 2 years. You can read about this in the Google Analytics Privacy Policy.
Similarly, we may also collect information regarding the type of device, your operating system, the browser you use, your internet service provider, your domain name, your internet protocol (IP) address, your language preferences, the location of your device, the date and time that you accessed our service, the Site that referred you to our Site, and the web pages you requested. We may use such information to evaluate service performance and service quality and to optimize the user experience of our Site. To collect this information, we use cookies, web beacons and similar technologies. We do not respond to or honor “do not track” signals or similar mechanisms transmitted by web browsers.
We do not knowingly collect personal information from or offer the Site or Services to anyone under the age of majority where you reside (which, in Canada, may be 18 or 19 years old, depending on where you live). If you are under the age of majority, you may only provide personal information or use the Site or Services with the permission and involvement of a parent or legal guardian. If your child has provided us with personal information, please contact us at info@firsttrackinvestment.com to request to have the personal information deleted.
We are committed to complying with Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation. Where we have your consent or it is lawful to do so, we may provide you with direct marketing communications about us or our Services, which may be of interest to you. Such information may be sent to you by post, email, telephone or SMS.
If you have consented to receiving marketing materials from us, you can withdraw your consent to receiving those communications at any time by:
However, we reserve the right to send you transactional or informational emails such as communications in connection with our Services or changes to our Site or our policies.
Upon written request to info@firsttrackinvestment.com, you will be informed of the existence, use and disclosure of your personal information, and will be given access to that personal information. We provide an opportunity for individuals to challenge the accuracy and completeness of their personal information and have it amended as appropriate.
In addition to the above rights, you also have the right to:
Any person who wishes to make a complaint concerning the application of this Policy or, more generally, the handling of their personal information by us, must do so in writing to our Privacy Officer at the email address indicated in the following section.
The individual must provide their name, contact information, including a telephone number, as well as the subject of the complaint and the reasons for the complaint, in sufficient detail to us to evaluate the complaint. If the complaint is not specific enough, the Privacy Officer may request any additional information deemed necessary to assess the complaint.
We treat all complaints received as confidential. Within 30 days following receipt of the complaint or of all additional information deemed necessary and required by our Privacy Officer in order to process the complaint, the Privacy Officer will evaluate the complaint and provide a written response. The purpose of this assessment will be to determine whether our handling of personal information complies with this Policy, any other policies and practices in place within the organization, and applicable legislation or regulations.
We will maintain a separate file for each complaint received, each of them containing the complaint, the analysis and documentation supporting the assessment, as well as the response sent to the person who filed the complaint.
It is also possible to file a complaint with the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia, Commisson d’accès à l’information du Québec in Quebec or any other privacy oversight body responsible for the applicable law. However, we invite any interested party to first contact our Privacy Officer and wait for our process to be completed.
Accountability with respect to your personal information is important to us. In the event that you have any questions (including how personal information is managed by us), concerns about this Policy, or if you have reason to believe that we may have failed to adhere to it, please contact us by sending an email. Questions regarding your rights and responsibilities under this Policy can be directed to our Privacy Officer at info@firsttrackinvestment.com.
Last Revised: May 29 2024
