The Financial Post reports in its Thursday, Feb. 22, edition that in January, Leon's Furniture announced its plan to develop a master-planned community that would include 4,000 residential units on a large piece of land it owns in Toronto. The Post's Denise Paglinawan writes that although it may seem like a strange move for a furniture retailer, Leon's chief executive officer Michael Walsh sees it as an opportunity to unlock the value of the company's vast real estate portfolio. Leon's has 303 stores across Canada, including Leon's, The Brick, Brick Outlet and The Brick Mattress Store, many of which are located on land that it owns. Therefore, leveraging its real estate assets has become one of the company's top priorities. Mr. Walsh says: "The key to all this is optimizing and intensifying the land. There's two phases to it. Phase 1, we can do fairly quickly, we just have to go back with a submission to the city and that would be for a new head office and a new retail flagship store. The second phase of that is developing the master plan and then working with the city on a secondary plan to get that approved. We're hoping that we can get that completed in 2025."