Our story
FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE
Our company owes its name to the architect Louis B. Magil. Graduating from McGill University in 1936, he founded Magil in 1948 and incorporated Magil Construction in 1953. Over the next three decades, the company built a solid reputation in the residential and commercial construction industry in Greater Montréal.
In 1978, at the dawn of his 70th birthday, Mr. Magil decided to pass the torch to his successors.
A Quiet Revolution Under Construction
A few years after Louis Magil graduated in architecture, the Second World War started. Due to the circumstances, the young architect faced a downturn in construction. He headed to the North Shore and the Trois-Rivières regions where he gained experience for a few years before returning to Montréal in the late 1940s to found his construction company. He then moved towards specializing in the construction of single-family homes. The company succeeded in building nearly 8,000 single-family homes on the island of Montréal as well as the suburbs between the early 1950s and the late 1970s.
The scholarship is still offered today by the school of architecture.
Philanthropy
Coming from a modest family, his goal was to build affordable, high-quality homes. Always determined to ensure that quality homes be accessible to families, Louis B. Magil created a scholarship at McGill University to encourage graduate students in architecture whose projects were related to the creation of affordable living environments for families.
Carve Out an Enviable Place
At the turn of the 1980s, the next generation of Magil Construction entered the commercial and institutional sectors with flagship projects such as the IBM tower, Place Victoria and Place Montréal Trust. Magil Construction completed a redrawing of the city’s skyline with its many high-rise projects.
Great leadership
With the arrival of John Marcovecchio in 1986, Magil undertook a major project that contributed to the expansion of underground Montréal: The Promenades de la Cathédrale and the KPMG tower. This shopping centre built under a heritage church in the city, topped by a 36-storey tower then represented an extraordinary construction challenge.
Demonstrating great leadership in both innovation and management, this young engineering graduate, John Marcovecchio, became vice president and then president of Magil within 10 years.
To See Further
In 1990, seeing the downturn in the local construction industry coming, Magil invested in joint ventures with foreign partners to open offices in Shanghai, Sao Paulo, Santiago, Tel Aviv and Miami.
It is in this economic context of the 1990s that the company managed some of the few major construction sites in Montréal, including the Molson Center (Bell Center).
Despite the success of his companies abroad
domestic to international
Magil decided to reorganize its activities outside of Québec and take over the domestic market. At a time when Magil is established in Canada, an opportunity arose in 2016 for a major project in Cameroon and thus restarted its international activities.
As Luck Would Have It
The encounter between Bruno Fayolle and Hugues Fastrel of the French company Le Groupe Fayolle and John Marcovecchio represented an important milestone for Magil Construction. During their visit in 2006–2007 to seize business opportunities in Canada, the founders of Fayolle Canada concluded that Magil has the quality standards they are looking for in terms of labour and cleanliness on construction sites.
In 2009, after only 6 weeks, Fayolle decided to acquire Magil Construction, appreciating the company’s value for trust and respect.
Magil Construction has tripled its business volume since 2009 and continues to do so.
Fayolle’s arrival
Fayolle's arrival gave Magil a boost in positionning itself geographically and strategically as a Canadian company specializing in the construction of residential, commercial, industrial and institutional buildings.
Building Bridges From Coast to Coast
In 2010, the acquisition of McKay-Cocker Construction Limited, founded in London, Ontario, in 1946, ensured that the company could count on a solid and experienced team that stands out, particularly in health and safety, to serve the entire centre of Canada. Shortly after, the acquisition of Task in British Columbia, allowed Magil to extend its coverage to the West Coast.
Taking advantage of good economic conditions in 2019, Magil opened an office in the City of Québec.
By hiring a Director of Information Technology from the end of the ’80s.
Pioneer of innovation
Realizing the importance of placing new technologies at the heart of its service offering and its operating processes, the Magil company had become a pioneer in the construction industry.
Innovate to Do Better
Innovation not only made Magil stand out in the industry but advanced its knowledge—and thus offering a better quality of service. Following this philosophy, Magil invested massively in the creation of a BIM-VDC (Building Information Model-Virtual Design and Construction) department in 2016, thus marking a technological turning point in line with its values of sustainable development and its desire to simplify its processes of construction.
A strong brand that they now proudly carry across Canada.
A Trusted Name
Magil’s reputation, reinforced by Fayolle’s arrival, made it possible to rally many competent and well-established companies in Québec, Ontario, and British Columbia. In order to consolidate the corporate identity, all of the company’s entities were brought together under the banner of Magil Construction in 2017.
The Fayolle-Magil Chair
Consistent with its objectives in terms of sustainable development and innovation in construction, the company created the Fayolle-Magil Construction Chair in 2017 to encourage excellence in architecture, building, and sustainability within the Faculty of Environmental Design at the University of Montréal.
This initiative provided a better understanding of how the fields of architecture, construction and sustainability interact by analyzing the performance of a project, the processes to create it, and the ethics of the project.
Combine Our Past and Present Efforts for a Better Future
Our business vision is not only a plan drawn up on a limited horizon, but it is also part of our corporate values.
Magil wishes to build and bequeath an environment that cultivates its appeal. This is why we are focused on the acquisition of new knowledge, sustainable development and sustainable approaches to our projects in order to frame our expansion.
Our human and transparent approach is the cornerstone of our success yesterday and tomorrow.
To achieve our goals
We can always count on reliable partners and our people, among whom we count an exemplary number of women occupying key positions—notably in the management of the company and in the field of construction.
