Brandon Donnelly

Daily insights for city builders, delivered every morning at 6 AM ET. I’m Brandon Donnelly — a Toronto-based real estate developer and founder of Globizen. I’ve been writing here since 2013.

Subscribe

  • Who actually wins the autonomous vehicle future?

    There was once a time when Uber was heavily investing in autonomous vehicles and rides. Then that stopped in an effort to become profitable. But now, out of necessity, it’s back. Uber recently announced that the company will invest “$10 billion of capital over the coming years to bring AVs to market at scale.”

    Uber’s belief is that the self-driving car industry won’t be dominated by just one company. Instead, it will be a mixed ecosystem where some companies build their own cars and ride-hailing apps, and others plug into existing networks. And in this world, it is these networks — like Uber — that will become the most valuable piece of the puzzle.

    Perhaps.

    Whether they believe this or not, Uber basically has to say this because they are the platform aggregator. They do not build or operate any self-driving vehicles of their own — at least not anymore. These parts of their business were sold off.

    Autonomous vehicles are a wicked technical challenge. The edge cases are extraordinarily difficult to solve. If only a select few companies solve them, and solve them well, then there’s an argument to be made that they will capture the majority of the market.

    But if AV technology becomes commoditized and it ends up being all about the brand and who can aggregate demand the best, well then, Uber could very well be right. They already have global scale.

    My view is that Waymo has such a commanding lead when it comes to AVs that they have the leverage in the short and medium term. There are also zero switching costs for ride-hailing customers. I’ll use whatever is better. So if I’m Uber, I’m worried about Waymo, which is presumably why they are starting to have differing opinions.

  • Does design and brand equity sell?

    It is a core belief of mine that design and brand equity create value in real estate. But to what extent is this true? And how much should a developer invest in these things? Is it worth spending a 3-5% licensing fee on a cool brand? Will the price premiums really be there? Here are some ways to think about it.

    One, good design can just mean good taste and, as we talked about yesterday, giving a shit. This doesn’t need to cost any more than bad design; you just have to put in the effort. This is the low-hanging fruit to be seized.

    Two, good design solves problems. And if you’re solving problems that increase returns and development yield, promote sales or leasing velocity, and/or lower operating expenses, then you have tangible value. You can start to figure out the return on your investment, and that helps with decision-making.

    Three, good design can also just mean cool and luxurious materials and details. Here, you’ve got the highest cost of our three options, but it may be important in order to differentiate your offering, drive scarcity value, and create prestige. This one can be harder to evaluate quantitatively.

    All of these approaches ultimately intertwine with the overall brand of a project and of the developer, and that’s the next piece for us to discuss.

    The concept of brand equity has always been fascinating to me because on some level, it’s simply the premium people are willing to pay “for a name” because of the perception they have of that name. It is, by one definition, the “sum of consumers’ thoughts, feelings, and attitudes about your brand that influences their willingness to pay for your product.”

    The challenge with brand equity is that it takes a long time to build, which is one of the reasons developers often borrow it (i.e., license it) from established consumer-facing brands to use on their projects. The other reason is that real estate tends to be local and slow-moving, so it’s objectively difficult to build a global brand.

    Design and brand work together. If you’re developing an Aman Residence, the brand will dictate its standards so you don’t negatively impact the equity it has built up over time. But now we get back to our original question: To what extent does it make sense to invest in design and brand?

    In economics, the definition of a luxury good or superior good is that demand increases more than proportionally as incomes rise. What this effectively means is that when times are good and people are feeling wealthy, they tend to overspend on luxury goods. And when times are not so good, they will often underspend on luxury goods and focus on normal or necessary goods.

    What this means for real estate is that there is an opportunity to capture additional value through investments in design and brand when the overall market supports it. But during downturns, this pricing premium may feel like it disappears. Still, prudent investments in design and brand can lead to selling or leasing when the rest of the market isn’t. Your investments bought liquidity.

    When Steve Jobs launched the original NeXT computer, he overshot the market by a wide margin, and it was a commercial failure. And when he launched the iPhone, critics similarly said it was too expensive. Apple ended up having to lower its initial pricing slightly, but the product turned out to be exactly what consumers wanted.

    Finding the right sweet spot depends on local market conditions and the point you’re at in the development cycle. This involves as much art as it does science. But perhaps the above framework can start to help you think through the options.

  • Site Tour: Craft Residences in the Junction

    This week, my friend Bill, who is the founder of Gairloch Developments, took me through his Craft Residences project. Bill has done and is doing a number of beautiful projects in the Junction and Craft is one of them.

    When we met up on Dundas, I immediately complimented him on the project’s use of green (which is, of course, Globizen’s brand colour). Craft has green brick mortar, green windows (on the outside), and green picket balcony guards. Love it.

    His response was, “It feels to me like a housing project you’d find in London.” And I think that’s exactly right.

    There are some design details that objectively just cost more to design and build. Often the simpler the detail, the more expensive it is to build. As one of my favourite design sayings goes, “Only the rich can afford this much nothing.”

    But there are other design details that don’t cost more; you just have to give a shit and make good decisions. Bill gives lots of shits, and it shows in his work. I’m super happy that he’s building in the Junction. Below are my photos from the site tour.

    P.S. Globizen has an upcoming, soon-to-be-announced project where we’ve been looking at design details to specifically communicate our brand. Some of them will be green. Please take it as a compliment, Bill.

    Update: Craft Residences was designed by BDP Quadrangle. Heather Rolleston is the principal in charge and senior designer.

  • Navigating cities through a stroller lens

    I love to travel and I try my best to be efficient at it. Pre-kid, Bianca and I would leave for weeks with just two carry-on suitcases and a laundry event at some point in the middle of the trip. But now we’re planning our first trip to Paris and Nice with Vivienne (she’ll be ~3 months old) and this has forced us to rethink our entire operation.

    I have spent more time than I care to admit researching travel strollers and super-light car seats and thinking about how best to navigate the places we are going. It’s an expensive world that I didn’t really need to know about.

    All of this is still to be tested out in the field, but here’s where we’ve landed:

    • Our two carry-on suitcases have been consolidated into one larger 85L checked bag. This is about freeing up our hands as much as possible.
    • I’ve swapped my personal item for a Patagonia Black Hole Mini MLC Pack (30L). MLC stands for maximum legal carry-on. This is not a referral link. I just like the bag. My business partner introduced me to it.
    • We got an Ergobaby Metro 3 travel stroller from family that we’ll be using. It fits into overhead compartments. Unfortunately, it’s not compatible with our car seat, and so we came close to buying a second and lighter travel-only car seat (along with the requisite travel stroller adapters). This felt wasteful. We scratched the car seat. I was also not excited about lugging it around.

    I think this is as minimal as we can be.

    We almost exclusively take the train and walk in Paris (though I have caused chaos in their traffic circles before) and, for Nice, I found a ride-hailing app called SIXT that allows you to reserve rides in advance and add in a car seat for newborns. The main reason we debated a car seat is because where we are staying in Nice is a little out of the centre and we would have wanted to Uber. Now we’ll just test our luck with SIXT and Vivienne’s capacity for long walks on steep inclines.

    It’s amazing how differently you start to think about cities and places when you’ve got a stroller to contend with and an infant with limited neck strength. If any of you have any tips, please leave a comment below.

  • How Tokyo fits 11 homes on 1,600 square feet

    Last week, Globizen shared this 11-unit condominium project in Tokyo on Instagram. Some of you may like the design by Ryuichi Sasaki Architecture, and some of you may not. But regardless, it’s an interesting case study in that the site area is only 152.27 square metres (or 1,639 square feet). The building footprint is 84.86 square metres and the total floor area is 416.68 square metres. If we divide the total area by 11 units, we get an average area per home of only 37.88 square metres, and so these are certainly on the compact side. Here are the floor plans:

    The unit composition is as follows:

    • Ground and basement: 2 x 2-storey homes
    • Levels 2-3: 6 x single-storey homes
    • Levels 4-5: 3 homes, 2 of which are 2-storey homes

    The other thing you’ll notice is that there’s a single access stair in the middle of the building. As compact as the homes may be, it is this point-access-block design that unlocks the site. To put the site area into perspective, it is almost certainly smaller than the average single-family lot in the central parts of Toronto. A 20′ x 100′ lot is 2,000 square feet, versus the 1,639 square feet we have here (though the proportions are different).

    I’m not suggesting that 37.88-square-metre homes are the objective; rather, I’m suggesting that reducing the barriers to developing small infill sites will unlock new housing opportunities that can then be tailored to the needs of the market. Had two egress stairs been required for this building, it would look very different, and may not have ever been built.

    Floor plans from Ryuichi Sasaki Architecture

  • The 2026 Governor General Medals in Architecture

    I was in Montréal at the start of this year for work and I stayed at the Moxy Downtown. (I will, by the way, use any excuse to find my way to Montréal.) As I walked over to the hotel from the train station, I remember thinking to myself, “Wow, this is a beautiful tower.” It has a nice slenderness ratio and the entire precast facade has been designed to look like an intricate woven pattern.

    Well, it turns out, I’m not alone in my appreciation of 900 Saint-Jacques. The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada and the Canada Council for the Arts have just revealed the winners of the 2026 Governor General’s Medals in Architecture (which are given to exceptional projects recently completed by Canadian architects) and it’s on the list.

    Designed by Chevalier Morales architectes and Brian Elsden Burrows Architecte – Le Groupe Architex, the project is worth checking out if you aren’t familiar. Not just because of its beautiful facade, but because of its urban contributions to the Quartier des Gares. The jury called the site “prominent but hostile.”

    Also on the list are two projects by Toronto-based gh3*, who some of you might recall are the architects behind our Project Bench. One is Windermere Fire Station and the other is O’Day-Min Pavilion, both of which are in Edmonton and are exceptional.

    I could keep talking about more of the projects, but I’ll end by saying that this is the first time I’m learning about Kìwekì Point in Ottawa (designed by Patkau Architects and Janet Rosenberg & Studio — the landscape firm behind One Delisle). This is reason enough to book a trip to Ottawa.

    Congratulations to all of the winners. For the full list of projects, click here.

    Photography: 900 Saint-Jacques by Maxime Brouillet; O’Day-Min Pavilion by Raymond Chow

  • The spirit of a place

    We often think of cities in terms of their built environment. This city has lots of futuristic tall buildings, this one has lots of ornate mid-rise buildings, and this one is mostly suburban sprawl. But the built environment is only one component.

    Underlying the physical environment (let’s call it the hardware of a place) is a cultural ethos that connects our spaces and influences our behaviors (let’s call it the software of a place). In the architecture community, this is often referred to as the genius loci, or the “spirit of a place.”

    I was reminded of this when reading a recent column by Benedict Evans that starts with him reminiscing about the six years he spent living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area:

    “More fundamental than that, though, is the ethos and the sense of possibility. Of course, you’re going to do amazing things. Of course, you’re going to make a company – that’s what everyone does. Of course, this new thing is going to change the world. The world is malleable. You can do things. You can create a giant company from a PowerPoint in a couple of years.”

    This, of course, is a well-documented feature of the Bay Area. And its origins can almost certainly be traced all the way back to the Gold Rush of the mid-1800s when risk-taking misfits flocked to the region in search of overnight riches, transforming a sleepy hamlet into a place.

    But even though the lineage may appear clear in the case of San Francisco, the genius loci of a place does not represent immutable code. It changes over time, just as the fortunes and influence of a city also rise and fall over time.

    I often think about this in the case of my city, Toronto. Instead of being founded by maverick gamblers, the city was founded on an opposite set of principles: British imperial loyalty, Protestant morality, and anti-revolutionary order.

    Toronto has changed a great deal since then, through massive waves of immigration and robust post-war expansion, and the city’s built environment has naturally transformed from orderly Victorian row houses to supertall towers.

    But now, with the frenetic condominium boom of the last cycle in the rear-view mirror, there’s an increasing sense of what’s next. What will be Toronto’s genius loci of the future? That’s the exciting opportunity in front of us today and it’s up to us to decide. Indeed, the world is malleable.

  • Canada is uniquely suited to become a global hub for data centres

    Kevin Yin frames the data centre debate eloquently in this recent Globe and Mail article: “The backlash against data centres is understandable. But the answer is not to block construction. It is to design a better bargain.”

    Here are some things we can say about data centres right now:

    • They create relatively few long-term direct jobs (though innovation spillover does exist when they cluster).
    • They are power hungry.
    • They are a core physical engine of the new global economy.
    • They play to Canada’s physical and economic strengths as an energy superpower.

    Meaning, Canada is uniquely suited to become a global hub for data centres and AI infrastructure. Canada has abundant energy, naturally lower cooling costs, geopolitical stability, and deep institutional capital.

    The challenge is that we need to manage the negative externalities. No household, for instance, wants to pay higher energy bills.

    We also need to make sure that there are long-term economic benefits for the country, and that we’re not repeating the old habit of “exporting” our resources to other countries so that they can innovate. That would be a bad deal.

    The world is going to continue to need a lot more data centres, and Canada is in a unique position to lead and have control over its own destiny. Kevin offers a few ideas for what a better bargain might look like, if you’d like to have a read.

  • Why real estate development is an art form

    When I interviewed Michael Cooper, founder of Dream, back in 2016, one of the things he said to me was that real estate development is one of the most creative things you can do. What did he mean by that?

    As a developer, you have to problem-solve within extreme constraints. There are zoning regulations, building codes, investor interests, neighbourhood associations, market conditions, and many other sometimes-competing demands at play.

    The job of the developer is to navigate through this maze, rely on the expertise of others, and come up with the best possible solution. That requires creativity, and it’s what Cooper was getting at.

    The process is also self-reinforcing: constraints are good for creativity. As filmmaker and actor Orson Welles once said, “The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.” In architecture school, we used to always say that the hardest thing is a blank canvas, because design is about solving problems. Constraints present problems.

    Of course, developers can’t solve these problems on their own. They rely on talented multidisciplinary teams and the advice they provide. But it’s important to keep in mind specific professionals tend to view problems through the lens of their discipline.

    A lawyer might feel strongly about a particular legal clause, or a structural engineer might view a particular design as optimal, but ultimately the developer is going to have to take these recommendations and evaluate them against the entire list of constraints they are facing. It becomes a creative trade-off.

    The developer has to have the largest field of view. Seeing the whole board is how you make it out of the maze.

  • Introducing Places

    I must say, I’m really happy to be back blogging on WordPress (now with a self-hosted setup). One of the things I set up over the long weekend was a new “Places” page that links to specific cities and locations that I’ve written about over the last 13 years.

    All I did was ask AI to tell me which places I have written about the most (Toronto was the undisputed number one). Then I created a bunch of corresponding post categories and batch-edited any posts that had these locations either in the title of the post or in a tag.

    Now, if you’re interested in Marrakech but not Montréal, there’s an easy way to filter. Here’s what the Places page looks like:

    This is one of the things I missed the most: the ability to easily search, sort, and go back to old posts. That was surprisingly difficult on Paragraph, and it felt to me like my posts were going into a black hole, never to be found again. Reading old posts and revisiting them with new thoughts is a big part of this writing journey.

    I’m also excited to add to the Places page. Each one of the covers is a photo I took, and if I didn’t have any photos of the place, it didn’t get added to the page. We have some trips planned at the end of this summer and over the winter, including a bucket-list location for our 16th annual ski and snowboard trip, so stay tuned for more photos and places.