In fact, that's the premise on which Stephen Sperling, owner of Barrie-based Aerarium Development Corporation Limited, has built his vast property development company.

The Toronto-born entrepreneur first came to Barrie in the early 1970s to open a branch of the mortgage brokerage he worked for then, but he quickly saw additional opportunities.

"As a mortgage broker, I was doing a lot of commercial/industrial mortgages," he recalls. "But there were a lot of people who couldn't afford to build."

Sperling realized that many such companies would get a "bigger bang for their dollar by investing in equipment rather than in bricks and mortar."

So he decided to provide the space for them to do so.

His initial foray into land developing was in what is now Barrie's south end.

He purchased 23 acres from the city, along the newly serviced Bayview Drive, and built a 16-unit industrial rental building.

He later added 12 more units.

"We started by hiring general contractors to work for us," he says of his company's early years' learning curve. "But even general contractors make mistakes and I figured if I'm going to pay for it anyway, I might as well do it."

This was made easier, he adds, by the people he gathered around him.

"I've been blessed over the years to have some very, very good employees and trades."

Aerarium currently manages 42 properties in Barrie (totaling just under three million square feet of rental space), and further developments in Toronto, Huntsville, Milton and Brampton.

His mark was literally left on Barrie's streets when he bought and developed the land at the intersection of highway 400 and St. Vincent Street which now has Sperling Drive winding through it.

"I asked to put my name on it and the city said fine," he says. "It's sort of a legacy."

Unlike a purchased property, the design-build projects Aerarium builds for clients come with flexible leases that allow for internal growth, Sperling says. This reason, rather than financial limitations, is sometimes the rationale preventing a purchase.

"Purolator is owned 96 per cent by the post office and can afford to own its own building," Sperling says as an example. "But it's a business wherein technology is changing, and that building might not fit their needs 10 years from now. So they rent."

He says he has also seen some clients arrive with new businesses and has moved them several times as their needs change.

He cites client EBS Notebooks, which started off with a 450-square-foot unit at 80 Bradford Street in Barrie. The company is now in an 11,000 square-foot space on Bayview Drive, with another operation in Toronto.

"I will tear up leases if we can re-locate them in another of our properties," he promises. "If they'd been with another landlord who wasn't as diversified and flexible as us, they would have had trouble satisfying their growth needs."

In addition to new developments, Aerarium also reconstitutes older properties, Sperling says.

The former General Electric (GE) plant at 80 Bradford Street is one example of this. He bought it 18 years ago from GE and turned it into offices and warehousing space.

Similarly, 28 Currie Street, south of Flags Unlimited, in Barrie's north end, was formerly a distribution centre for Bombardier vehicles. It now has 30 industrial tenants.

In addition to Aerarium, Sperling has diversified his business operations to provide other business services.

Northstar Leasing Corporation was established in 1983 and has 4,000 active accounts across Canada.

More recently, Northstar Acceptance began working in conjunction with used-car lots 18 months ago to provide financing for their customers.

He also operates storage services (Triple B Warehousing - providing off-site handling and storage of goods for large companies like Dana and Honda; and The Space Station - a mini-storage facility on Bayview Drive with 280 units of various sizes).

"Personally I like helping companies and also making a profit doing it," he says simply. "It's a challenge when someone sits across from me and says 'these are my particular needs' to figure out the real needs."

For more information, click on www.aerariumgroup.com