Steve Gupta recognized the potential of Vaughan early on.
More than a decade ago, the president and CEO of The Gupta Group and Easton’s Group of Hotels acquired a vacant plot at Highway 7 and Interchange Way and built a Hilton Garden Inn, Vaughan’s first hotel. “There was nothing there at that point,” Gupta tells Epoch Times.
So when then prime minister Stephen Harper came to town in 2009 to announce federal funding for the Toronto-York-Spadina subway extension to York University, there was really only one place to do it: Gupta’s hotel. “I was the one who introduced him,” he recalls. “There were 1,200 people in attendance.”
That subway extension, slated to open later this year, proved to be a game-changer for the city above Toronto. It’s spurred the development of several major residential projects to date—Cosmo, The Met, and Expo—all of which sold well. A good chunk of demand for the developments has come as a result of York University, which has been vastly underserved in the student accommodation department.
