1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. He was the chairman of real estate for MD Financial and bought over $1 billion worth of properties for the MD Realty Fund. Since the 1960s, he built more than 1,500 houses in Montreal's Hampstead, Westmount and Côte Saint-Luc areas, as well as over 10,000 condominium units across Canada and the United States. In 1978, Lépine made his first real estate investment in the United States with the purchase of Drake Tower, a 143-unit apartment building in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Throughout the 1980s, Lépine developed multiple apartment and commercial buildings in South Florida, namely in Broward County and Palm Beach County. In 1980, Lépine purchased a 127-unit apartment building known as The Patrician at 2168 South Ocean Boulevard in Boca Raton, Florida. He re-developed the property and converted the rental units to condominiums. The project recorded over $9 million in sales in the first year. In 1980, Lépine also purchased The Berkshire at 1775 South Ocean Boulevard in Delray Beach, Florida, the first time share in Palm Beach County. By 1985, Groupe Lépine's Florida division had reached US$20 million per year in sales. In 1979, Lépine acquired a large parcel of land on Deom Avenue on the border of the Outremont neighborhood of Montreal from St. Patrick's Society of Montreal for a total of $8 million over multiple phases. He had acquired the property with the intention of developing 1,500 apartments. This was met with resistance from the city of Montreal, who wanted to convert the entire property into a park. Lépine argued that this would not be in the best interest of citizens, as it would cost the city at least $10 million, with no long term tax revenues. Lépine eventually struck a deal with Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau, who approved the development in the spring of 1981 for 725 apartments, in exchange for Lépine giving the city 20% of the land on his property for public park space at no charge. The project was later approved for over 925 apartments, with added commercial zoning for retail. The parcel of land measured nearly 1.1 million square feet. The project also directly created 2,000 jobs. In late November 1981, Lépine started the development of Le Sanctuaire du Mont-Royal, a five building, 925-unit condominium, retail and athletic complex in Outremont, Quebec, the biggest project of his career. The project was pioneering and was the first time