The family of the late Joseph Kracauer Sr. is closing in on the sale of his real estate collection that left its mark on Montreal.
The Romanian-born developer, who died in February 2023, spent decades reshaping the city’s industrial and commercial landscape. His son Benjamin Kracauer, an architect based in New York City, is overseeing the sale of five remaining properties, starting with the office building at 1130-1140 Sherbrooke St. West.
“This building was a turning point,” Kracauer said in an interview. “My father started his career by building housing in the ’50s in Chomedey, suburban Montreal, he then moved into industrial buildings on the Plateau. By the time he built 1130 Sherbrooke in 1975, he had already developed over a million square feet.”
The younger Kracauer was recruited as an in-house architect for the portfolio and led major renovations at the Sherbrooke Street building.
“We redesigned the plaza in front of the building. It was poorly designed," he said. "We revamped the lobby and the elevator lobby, updated the facade, changed the glass to high energy efficient glass and repainted the building. It was brown. We changed it to grey to match the greystone (buildings) that we were surrounded with.”
The building's vacancy has risen to 30% after it lost a significant tenant, and Montreal’s valuation of the property dropped to $25.44 million in 2024 from $45.5 million in 2021, city records show, reflecting lower valouations for older office proeprties. Benjamin Kracauer confirmed that bids received so far for the property are “pretty much what I expected,” though he did not disclose a figure. Most of the other buildings in the portfolio are fully leased.
Joseph Kracauer arrived in Canada from Romania around New Year’s 1948 and began his career selling dry goods door to door.
“He was taken under the wing of the Canadian Jewish Congress,” his son said. “They sent him to Toronto where he was given a car and was put on a path to be a peddler. He didn’t like Toronto. He was more comfortable speaking French than English at the time. It changed.”
From those modest beginnings, Joseph Kracauer built Colonia Development and launched a series of major industrial buildings in the 1960s that were filled mostly by clothing manufacturing outfits that thrived in Montreal at the time. "I remember he got a mortgage for a million dollars," his son said. "He came home with a million-dollar cheque and was very happy for that.”
Sons inherit properties
Benjamin Kracauer joined the family business on a part time basis in the mid-1980s, splitting time between Montreal and New York, where he is a principal at the Archimuse architecture firm. “I was able to go to Montreal part-time and I liked it," he said. "In general I spent two days a week in Montreal between 1991 and 2023.”
After his father's death, he and his two brothers inherited the properties but the arrangement did not work. "When that reality occurred I was hoping I could work with my brothers to keep the property and make it a family business, but it was not possible," he said. "Very quickly we determined we had no choice but to sell the buildings to get out of the Montreal real estate that we owned and go our separate ways.”
The Sherbrooke building sale is expected to close fairly soon, he said, with the remaining assets, including 5650 Iberville, 1415 Jarry East, 6850 Sherbrooke East and the CLSC Montreal North building at 11401-11451 Lacordaire all slated for sale in early 2026.
Kracauer is stoic about the coming end to his association with his place of birth, where his father left a significant mark.
“I’m not indifferent, but I accept the situation. I have a thriving architectural office in New York with employees, and I welcome the chance to eventually focus on my architectural career which has been quite successful considering I’ve been doing it part-time," he said. "I have a good partner that allowed me to be absent for half the week. And we managed to build a business.
He said his firm has an eight-floor residential building under construction in Brooklyn, and "we just completed an addition to the Hudson Museum in Yonkers, with a 10,000 square foot gallery space and views of the red brick buildings and the river.”