Executive and philanthropist Ryan Beedie is making more than buildings—he’s creating a legacy

In the corner of a boardroom in Ryan Beedie’s sprawling ninth-storey downtown Vancouver headquarters sits a picture of Keith Beedie—a constant reminder of the family patriarch and “powerful force” who brought the younger Beedie into the family enterprise. “The business was everything. I wanted to make him proud,” Ryan says of his father, who passed away in 2017 at the age of 91. “We bonded through Canucks hockey and work.”

The everlasting legacy of Keith is never far away as Ryan shares his journey of building a development behemoth in B.C., though now the empire has arms and robust footprints in Alberta and Ontario, as well as an unorthodox—although quite successful—expansion into Nevada. Oh, and the opening of a gold mine that will be one of the biggest employers in central B.C.

Beedie, the firm, has hit incredible  milestones with Ryan at the helm (he became company president in 2001, at the ripe old age of 33), including more than 35 million square feet of completed industrial space—featuring custom developments for purchasers like Sobeys and Saputo—and two Amazon facilities. Now with 350-plus staff, Beedie is the largest private industrial landowner, developer and property manager in Western Canada, with the management arm alone totalling 172 properties, 375 tenants and an income-generating portfolio of just over 16 million square feet.

Personally, it was a big spring for Ryan. In May he was inducted into the Canadian Business Hall of Fame; that same month he was also inducted into the Business Laureates of B.C. Hall of Fame, alongside his late father. While he has never been one to seek formal recognition, accolades certainly find him as his accomplishments pile up. When I ask him about the Order of B.C. pin on his jacket, Ryan admits he doesn’t wear it as much as he thinks he should, but fondly recalls then-premier John Horgan giving him the award in 2020. “He said, ‘Good job, keep going.’ These forms of  recognition serve to inspire me to want to keep going and to do bigger and better things,” he says.

Though Keith started the business back in 1954 as a family home builder (Beedie just celebrated its 70th anniversary last year), Ryan jumped in as a fresh-faced—and rather impatient—24-year-old (he recalls doing a deal from a pay phone during  graduate school). As a young businessman fresh out of Simon  Fraser University (he and Keith would go on to donate $22 million back to the school), Ryan pushed his father—and the business vision—as they grew. With a mind that is constantly in motion (“You should read my report cards from grades two, three, four. Guaranteed there’s ADHD,” he says), Ryan constantly strove to enter new  sectors and shake up the model of development that was the  foundation of the company—because, he says, in his heart he  believed they could scale. Where his dad focused on a vertical integration model in which you buy a site, build custom for the tenant and preserve ownership, Ryan transitioned the development arm from industrial to residential, diving headfirst into the world of condo development by creating Beedie Living. “It’s fun to enter new markets. My greatest fear is being bored,” he says.

The master plan

Going from a primarily B2B model to the more public-facing B2C came with massive challenges, especially when it came to breaking ground on high-rises and higher density projects. The new world of public hearings, red tape and anti-development sentiment in some jurisdictions presented a steep learning curve (“I still have a lot to learn,” he says) but he also recognized an opportunity to build something lasting in communities, with hopes of the Beedie name becoming synonymous with good work, good values and good construction.

And now, enter Fraser Mills, the most ambitious residential project of Ryan’s career. The master-planned community on the Coquitlam waterfront will encompass 5,500 houses across 16 towers and low- and mid-rise buildings on 96 acres. There’s a 50,000-square-foot state-of-the-art aquatic community centre; 100,000 square feet of office, commercial and retail space; 16 acres of recreational and green space along the Fraser River and plans for 400-plus childcare spaces and an elementary school. So far, so good: the first 36-storey tower, aptly named Debut, sold out in three weeks.

For Ryan, bringing Fraser Mills to life has been a long time coming and not an easy road. Beedie bought the site as  industrial and rezoned it to be residential. It took a long time to  renegotiate with the city, says Ryan, but the rewards outweighed the headaches. (“For us, being relatively new to the sector, it’s a pretty  impressive opportunity,” he says.) He also felt an overwhelming desire for the legacy of creating a true community. The place—and the people living there—will form a sort of “Beedie town” that may be the key to unlocking future master-planned community developments, making Fraser Mills the template for even more expansive growth across Western Canada. “The legacy piece is a big motivator. You get to shape that community: 20, 30, 40, 50 years from now people could be talking about us as the developers. You can say, ‘Well look, we developed that,’ and that gives you credibility as a master-plan developer.”

Striking gold

If a master-planned community wasn’t keeping Ryan busy enough, another new—and rather unexpected—branch of development is now taking up some of his bandwidth: mining. After wading into the industry a decade ago with an old friend who was developing a mine on Canada’s East Coast (Ryan ended up as Atlantic Gold’s  biggest shareholder: “We ended up buying more and more shares”), Ryan sees the domestic gold-mining industry as “another great opportunity.” And, with that ever-moving mind, he became the largest shareholder in Artemis Gold, which just marked the start of commercial production at its 44-square-kilometre Blackwater Mine, 160 kilometres southwest of Prince George.

The largest gold-mine development in central B.C. in more than a decade, the project will be a massive economic driver in the region (it now employs 400 people; phase two will generate an additional 400 construction jobs, plus 170 operational jobs) and is a partnership with six First Nations. “It’s exciting to invest in your own community. There’s a reconciliation aspect too; 30 percent of our employees are from local First Nations,” Ryan says.

Blackwater is a feather in Ryan’s cap, not just for the jobs it’s creating and its tariff-proof domestic production, but also because he believes the operation can set a standard for future green mining operations. Artemis spent the extra outlay to give Blackwater one of the sector’s first fully electrified ore- processing plants—laying a foundation for the mine to be one of the lowest greenhouse gas-emitting open pit mines on earth, he says. And it doesn’t hurt that the price of gold is at a record high. “If this gold price holds… much of the profit will be infused into our charitable organizations.”

The legacy of philanthropy

With the social responsibility promise “Built for Good” formalized in their company ethos, Ryan and his wife Cindy, together with the Beedie companies and foundations, have given away more than $145 million to charities, and the power couple was honoured in Vancouver magazine’s Power 50 list this year for their philanthropy. Significant contributions include $5 million to Delta Hospital that is earmarked for a long-term care facility—Ryan sees it as an obligation to give back to a community in which they have done a significant amount of work. Cindy, who serves as executive director of the Beedie Foundation, is currently spearheading the multimillion-dollar Cindy Beedie Place, which will provide mothers in need with affordable housing and childcare.

There are also the concerts. Ryan was inspired to create his “own Coachella” after going to the California festival roughly a decade ago: Beedie Rocks started with a 2016 Huey Lewis and the News show (they had played Ryan’s 40th birthday) and then grew from there. Two years ago, the fete had Blondie and Bryan Adams as  headliners (he and Adams “really hit it off” and have become friends, with Ryan visiting the rock star backstage in Vegas this spring and at his Vancouver studio the day before this interview). A 2023 bash in Stanley Park raised $2 million for the Greater Vancouver Food Bank; the organization will be the beneficiaries of this year’s event as well, with headliners Def Leppard and Foster the People. “This is the fourth time we’ve done this—the pinnacle,” he says. “It’s such a standard: how can you beat Bryan Adams, hometown hero, in Stanley Park? You kinda can’t. But you can try.”

Education has become a key donation pillar. There’s the $22 million donation to SFU to create the Beedie School of Business. That endowment, and the appreciation from students that stemmed from it, motivated Ryan to double down. For his 50th birthday, he threw down $50 million to create the nonprofit society Beedie Luminaries, a scholarship program to provide higher education to students facing financial barriers. Luminaries started with an 80-student cohort in its inaugural year and has exploded in scale over the past seven years to include students across B.C., with specialized programs for grade 12 students, single  parents, refugees and immigrants and other newcomers to Canada, along with aspiring tradespeople. (“When we have events, he doesn’t even get a break to have a glass of water because there is a line of students that want to shake his hand and say personally how grateful they are,” says Luminaries’ executive director, Martina Meckova.)

The program boasts a 95-percent student success rate, and now, with six full-time staff, Luminaries has granted more than 1,000 scholarships, collectively adding up to the astounding tune of $46 million.

Whether it is development or philanthropy, what has motivated Ryan—and what continues to drive him forward in the golden age of his career—is reach and reputation. He’s extremely cognizant, he notes, that one can’t grow without the other. He wants people to see a Beedie sign in their town and have  positive feelings about what that name means: ideally, connecting it with good people and a good brand that cares about their community, their staff and the places they call home. Beedie’s reputation, and how they are viewed, is paramount to the company’s success at every level. “That’s fundamental to every decision we make. We’re not perfect by any stretch, but that is the lens through which we try to make our decisions, always keeping the long term in mind,” he says.

That, and honouring the legacy of his dad, who is never far from his mind.

“He left me a note once. He said, ‘It’s so nice for my life’s work to be able to hand it off and know it’s in good hands.’ It’s a master class in succession.”