Saint John’s TOSS Welcomes New Partners, Expands Into Multi-Residential Projects
SAINT JOHN — Saint John-based commercial space design firm TOSS has welcomed two new partners in the midst of a busy year with new projects that will take them out of their comfort zone.
Jennifer Greene and Sheila Golez will join existing partner Brendan Bates as the partners at TOSS. Greene was previously an associate partner and Golez a senior interior designer at the company.
Bates, who’d one of TOSS’s founder partners, says appointing two new partners is part of ongoing succession planning for the business, which was founded in 2004.
“This is the second set of succession planning we’ve done for TOSS, which is unusual for professional practice to go through. We’re proud of having done that,” said Bates. “Our first succession plan happened in 2014 with a retired partner and we continued with the firm. Then the founding partner, Karen Slade, is retiring this year. So Jen and Sheila are taking over and joining us.”
Though TOSS has been operating with just two partners for about six years, they’re glad to once again have three.
“It’s nice to have that dynamic with three and this is a more youthful approach to the firm now. We’re all in our forties, or close to 40,” says Bates. “But we still bring in the experience that TOSS has built up over the last 15 years of work.”
Over the last 10 years or so, there were very few new commercial builds in the Saint John region, so much of TOSS’s business focused on commercial interior design. But now, Bates says there’s been a shift.
“We shifted our focus truly towards commercial interiors because we saw a lot of clients moving offices to find the best deals and leases,” he says.
“In the last two years, we’ve seen that shift change again. We’re ramping up our architectural side again to get back into that game because there’s a lot of new builds coming up.”
Over the last year, TOSS has worked on projects such as the St. Andrews Medical Centre; the St. Stephen Municipal Office; Bayside Dental; The Greater Saint John Health Centre and the new Simply For Life headquarters.
TOSS also led the redesign of the Saint John City Hall building, which features a new customer-facing one-stop-shop on the ground floor where citizens can conveniently access departments like parking, customer services and permitting. Before, people had to hop in an elevator and try the find the floor they were looking for.
“We didn’t take their customer service lightly. It was a very crucial part and as far as the city’s spend, that was the forward-facing customer side of their business,” says Bates.
“They were adamant about having that correct and making it right. The rest of it was really to support the day-to-day activities, but this is the public visual.”
Due to client confidentiality, TOSS is limited as to how many details it can give on upcoming projects. But Bates says they’re seeing a lot of new builds and developments in Saint John this year.
“We’ve never seen a boom that’s coming in the next six months,” he says. “It’s going to be huge.”
What TOSS can reveal though is they are working on seven multi-residential projects in Saint John that are at various stages. Though TOSS has done one-off residential projects in the past, the firm has never taken on this many at one time.
“I’m not sure how that’s happening or what’s driving that, but it’s been quite the experience over the last month just trying to respond and get some pre-design, get some thoughts around that,” says Bates.
“We don’t specialize in multi-residential. It’s not been our forte in the past … We’re certainly bringing some of the creative and commercial application experience into that multi-residential. We feel it’s bringing a little more sophistication into some of those designs.”
TOSS expects to see a continued boom in the construction industry in the region, with 2021 is projected to be one of their best years yet.
“We are foreseeing a huge boom in the construction industry. Last year we had a total of 54 projects,” says Bates. “This year, just up to March, we’re tracking 31. If this trend continues it will probably be one of our best years.”
With TOSS having secured a strong Maritime presence, the firm is also looking to pursue projects overseas in places such as Africa this year.
“We really secured a niche for ourselves here in the Maritimes on the commercial side. But we really want to start expanding and challenging ourselves to new projects,” says Bates. “We might come back with our tail between our legs but right now, we’re going to try it and we’re going to try to put ourselves further afield.”