Quebec’s entrepreneurial community has grown in recent decades, but the province has failed to produce a known rags-to-riches homegrown billionaire in decades. Now Montreal developer Luc Poirier is attempting to fill that hole — by literally filling a hole.

He has local developers paying to put construction debris into the pit, a former brick quarry he intends to build on once it's full.

Poirier and his real estate development company, known for having a lot going on, at the moment are pursuing nine projects around the city. But the 48-year-old developer told CoStar News he expects one single real estate challenge to usher him into the billionaire bracket, a group that's estimated to number fewer than 20 in Quebec, according to lists occasionally published by various business publications.

He made a $3 million bet on the 12.5 million-square-foot former brick quarry on the South Shore of Montreal three years ago. The property takes the form of a wide depression at the west end of busy Taschereau Blvd., the main commercial strip running parallel to the St. Lawrence River. The proximity to a commercial district makes it unusual among former quarries across North America.

“When I bought it, people said I was crazy, they said that I would never be able to build anything there,” Poirier told CoStar News in an interview.

Poirier, who said he is motivated by challenging projects as well as financial fortune, found quick value in the forlorn expanse by welcoming fellow developers to cart construction debris into his pit. Soon trucks were coming to the site, hauling landfill from new projects around town, including Brivia's 1 Philips Square, Carbonleo's Royalmount Mall and others on Nuns Island.

The property in La Prairie ranges in depth from 12 to 28 feet below street level. Trucks deliver about 700,000 tons of landfill per year, a pace that will see the pit get filled in about 14 years, according to Poirier, whose operation faces local competition from similar operations in Montreal East, Varennes and Boucherville.

He works with Sanexen Environmental Services, which manages the deliveries, while his own company looks to attract the trucks by bidding on contracts for such major projects as the massive Réseau express métropolitain transit train light rail project. The price developers pay to dump their landfill on Poirier’s property depends on the truck's size and the nature of the soil being delivered, but a typical 12-wheeler truck will pay in the ballpark of $200 per delivery, according to Poirier.

The project contains risks. It's based on speculation that the quarry will fill without legal or environmental complications and that real estate demand will continue as expected. But taking on those kinds of chances are part of the challenge of land development, and Poirier said he has maneuvered past risks in the past.

Poirier said his pit has the advantage of being closer to the city than other landfill options. Shortening distances and avoiding traffic snarls can mean lower dumping costs for developers before they reach his dumping area.

Once the hole is no longer a hole, he said he will then be ready to execute his plan of building his Acti-Cité development of 3,200 units on top of the landfill.

By Poirier’s calculations, land in the area is currently valued at $68 per square foot in Canadian dollars, and he projects it will rise to between $80 and $90, which would result in his $3 million property breaking through the billion-dollar barrier. Poirier estimated his personal worth to be in the range of $500 million to $1 billion in an interview last December.

His estimate of a 30% increase in value over the next 14 years, representing a 2.1% annual increase, would appear to be a safe bet, considering that property values in Quebec have risen at a higher pace in recent years, brokers say. Condo prices in the province, for example, rose 52% between 2015 and 2021, according to data from The Quebec Professional Association of Real Estate Brokers, representing a 5.8% annual increase.

“It’s reasonable considering the current rate of inflation,” Charles Mimeault of Sotheby Realty South Shore Montreal division told CoStar News. “A projected annual increase of between 1% to 2% is realistic.”

The project is in a region familiar to Poirier, who was raised along with his brother by his single mother in social housing projects on Montreal's South Shore. Poirier found work in a corner store at the age of 14 and was soon managing other employees. He worked full-time at the store while attending school, which contributed to his expulsion from a pair of schools.

Poirier, who said he was often bullied for his big glasses and scraggly facial hair, started dealing hockey cards as a method of earning enough money for the annual fees required to join a local minor hockey team. He would purchase cards of National Hockey League players less popular in one area and sell them at a higher cost in places where those same cards were more in demand. By the time he was 16, the money was rolling in, and he said he purchased a Porsche sports car.

He then launched a computer equipment retail business, attracting clients from far and wide by selling computer disks at a loss, a trick that helped him lure customers to purchase the more expensive wares he was also peddling. The profits from that business allowed him to enter the real estate business, buying a small retail property near his retail office.

Poirier then joined a pair of other investors in a real estate project requiring a zoning change that allowed Poirier to invest his profits in rental properties. He eventually sold them all, as he found the constant repairs and tenant complaints not to his liking.

In 2007, Poirier put his money into purchasing a 2.2 million-square-foot island in the St. Lawrence River near Montreal known as Ile Charron from the Caisse Desjardins financial group for $6 million. He planned to build 2,500 homes on the property. He said he laid down half of the purchase price and borrowed the rest at 14% interest, making payments of $500,000 a year. He financed the loan payments by flipping houses while waiting for the Charron Island permissions to roll in.

But a group of residents opposed Poirier’s plans for the island and urged the provincial government to purchase the island to add to an adjacent nature park. The provincial Liberal government, which had previously been heavily criticized for considering allowing development on Mount Orford, put a halt to Poirier’s development plan and paid him $15 million for the island, giving him a $9 million profit.

Poirier said he later used much of that to purchase properties around town. He aimed to build on the former Owens Corning insulation factory in Candiac but local authorities chose to maintain it as industrial. Poirier sold the property last year to Rosewater for a profit of about $30 million.

Poirier has played a role in several of Montreal’s most prominent projects since that time. In 2011, he was the first to complete a tower in the Griffintown area, with the 20-floor Griffix building in the former industrial section directly south of the downtown core. He then watched as others, most notably Devimco, went on to build numerous units nearby.

“I could have kept building in that area but it didn’t inspire me, my passion lies in developing land,” he said.

He also made headlines when he purchased the site of the former Montreal Children’s Hospital from the provincial government in 2015. He worked to decontaminate the land and sold off his interests as Devimco and others pursued a six-tower residential development, five of which eventually got built.

Poirier was also one of the biggest investors in Montreal construction startup Upbrella, which uses technology that allows builders to use hydraulic lifts rather than cranes. His Rubic project in downtown Montreal was the first project to employ the approach when it was built in 2016.

Upbrella has since gone on to create several other buildings, and now Poirier is waiting, looking ahead to filling the quarry and pursuing that stated passion for developing land.