About Daniel Greenhalgh
Daniel Greenhalgh
Co-Founder at ENM Construction
The success of ENM hinges on its people, and that begins with its founders, Colin Lacey and Daniel Greenhalgh.
As a founding partner, Daniel oversees the day-to-day operations at each of our construction sites. He’s managed dozens of construction projects, including several low-rise condo developments, major commercial renovations and new builds.
In addition to ensuring projects are progressing according to schedule, Daniel is responsible for quality control and takes a hands-on approach by visiting each site regularly.
In his personal time, Dan likes to explore the backcountry of British Columbia as well as other parts of the world. He's recording these adventures on his personal blog, danielgreenhalgh.ca.
An Interview with Dan Greenhalgh
How did you get started at ENM?
Colin and I have been friends for 21 years, since we were kids, and we worked together on a few development projects before founding ENM in 2015. Colin named the company after his kids, Elizabeth, Nicholas and Matthew.
What made the two of you decide to strike out on your own?
We’d worked as an internal team for other developers, so we were familiar with this kind of business model. We both had similar ideas for how to improve things in the business. We wanted to take similar approaches to pursuing and developing projects. So far, it’s working out really well.
What does your day to day look like?
I arrive on site at 7:00 AM, and I spend the first half of the day as the project manager. I’m essentially the trades manager – I make sure all the individual trades people, the electricians, the plumbers, the carpenters, have all the information and tools they need to stay on task. After lunch break, I spend the afternoons in the office helping with the business side of things.
What is your favourite part of working at ENM?
I really like the team
we’ve formed here. We’re a close group of people, and I love coming to work everyday and getting things done with this team. So that’s my biggest motivation to come to work, I just enjoy being around them.
What’s been your favourite project to work on?
Well, Willoughby Walk
is the first project I’ll have taken right from the beginning, from land acquisitions and consultations with the city, all the way through to occupancy, which will happen this fall. This one is definitely the most satisfying. But before this, I worked on a renovation in Guilford, the Taphouse Bar and Grill. I’d say I learned more from that than any other project. We had an extremely compressed time frame, about three and a half months, and it was very complex. But we were successful; we brought it in on time and on budget, so there was a big sense of accomplishment. I think it’s helped us establish our reputation as reliable partners.
What made you and Colin decide to pursue purpose-built rental projects?
Rental housing has always been particularly interesting to me. Virtually no one is doing it, especially when we started planning for Willoughby Walk a few years ago. Colin and I wanted to make ENM a one-stop shop for rental housing, from development to construction. The rental market is a tighter market, there’s less money overall, but the trade-off is that it’s a lot more consistent, it’s easier to hit.
Housing is always going to have its ups and downs, it can get really high obviously, but then it can sort of average out, and of course it’s always subject to a big downturn. But rental is slow and steady, it’s always tracking up, so it’s a much safer market. I love that we’re filling a huge need for housing. If you read any analysis of the causes of the housing crisis here, one of the first things mentioned is the lack of rental housing. There’s an incredibly low vacancy rate, and that just makes the rents on units that are available shoot sky high.
We’re hopefully at the beginning of a big wave of new rental housing that’s built with quality materials and will help make housing more affordable overall.
Do the two of you plan to get involved in more affordable housing projects?
We’ve had a partnership with Habitat for Humanity
to help develop affordable housing in Mission, but we’ve definitely seen the organization struggle a bit to stay steady. I think it’s always going to be a challenge to have smooth, solid working relationships between the triangle of private, public and non-profit housing organizations. The NDP has taken away any question of will from the provincial government to make affordable housing projects happen. I’m encouraged that they’ve created a HousingHub that’s designed to help broker those relationships.
One of our main goals at ENM is to do our part as private developers to address the housing crisis, and we’re always looking to get involved in those kinds of partnerships to bring affordable housing to the communities that need it.