Brantford company becoming a world leader in modular housing

Asked about his newest modular home projects, Brantford businessman Andrew Neill talked about his family connection to W. Ross Macdonald School.

“It’s kind of interesting,” the 37-year-old president and CEO of ANC Group of Companies, said with a smile. “Both my parents worked at W. Ross Macdonald school and Dad was also superintendent of the Robarts School for the Deaf in London.

“Now, here I am working on a major housing project for the Canadian Helen Keller Center in Etobicoke.”

ANC Modular, one of Neill’s companies, is currently manufacturing a six-storey building for the centre, which provides housing and support services for the deaf and blind.

Neill’s mother Margot is retired and his father, David, a long-time W. Ross Macdonald School administrator, died in 2008.

The Helen Keller project is one of several ANC Modular has on the go after completing projects in Brantford. The company is also working on a four-storey building in downtown Toronto for St. Felix Centre, which helps people who are homeless and hungry.

Both the Keller and St. Felix projects are funded by the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s Rapid Housing Initiative. Almost all – 99 per cent – ​​of ANC Modular’s current contracts are affordable and supportive housing projects for government-funded agencies across Ontario.

Meanwhile, ANC crews are finishing a modular housing project in Ohsweken for Six Nations Housing Authority.

ANC has already completed projects in Brantford including a $5.5 million 25-unit modular housing development on previously vacant municipally-owned land at 177 Colborne St. West. It was also chosen for a ‘tiny-home’ project at Stinson and Stirton Avenues in Brantford.

Neill started ANC, a construction company in 2017 and launched the modular home building company in 2021. Working out of a manufacturing facility at the Brantford Municipal Airport, the company employs 42 people and is on its way to becoming a global leader.

“We have developed a proprietary modular system that is currently patent-pending globally,” Neill said. “We are in discussions with government agencies overseas for the use of our system to provide a solution for high rise buildings on some of the largest scale developments in the world.”

ANC is also working closely with a United States engineering company to ensure ANC’s system can meet seismic ratings in California and hurricane rates in Florida for high rise builds, Neill said.

ANC is in discussions with Conestoga College and Grand Erie District School Board to provide skilled trades jobs and training for young people in its manufacturing facility.

Neill, who began his career in the construction industry at 17, made the list of the Top 40 under 40 in Canadian Construction in 2022. ANC was recently awarded the Canadian Homebuilders Association award for Modular Innovation and the Ontario Concrete Award for Innovation for lightweight and low carbon mix designs.

But the Helen Keller project is especially meaningful for Neill given his connection to W. Ross Macdonald School.

“This building will take every person with a deaf-blind disability off the Toronto housing wait list,” Neill said. “It will put them into a safe and affordable home and provide them with the social services they require.”

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