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.

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Month: December 2016

  • New York and Toronto population densities compared

    Today I came across this Reddit talking about how few census tracts there are in the United States with a population density greater than 150,000 people per square mile. 

    Basically, there’s a bunch in New York, one in San Francisco (Tenderloin), and one in Chicago that doesn’t really count because it’s an unusually small tract. Most other American cities don’t even come close.

    Looking at this New York Times mapping of the 2010 US census data, it turns out there are neighborhoods in NYC that go well beyond 150,000 people per square mile. Here’s one census tract (#154) at just over 200,000 ppsm:

    If you convert 200,764 into the globally accepted standard for measuring distances and areas, you get approximately 77,515 people per square kilometer. Pretty dense.

    As a comparison, I thought I would see how this number stacks up against what is commonly referred to as the densest neighborhood in Canada: St. James Town. 

    If you pull up that geographic code in the 2011 Canadian census data (#5350065.00 in case you’re that nerdy), you’ll see a map boundary that looks like this:

    And you’ll also find a 2011 population density of approximately 60,915 people per square kilometer. Also pretty dense – though the population did decline from 2006.

    Now obviously St. Jamestown is only one example. The rest of the city is, by and large, far less dense. But maybe when our 2016 census data gets released next year, we’ll find that we’ve become even denser. I suspect we will.

  • Yardhouse for sale

    The London-based architecture firm, Assemble, has recently put their old studio space up for sale at

    £150,000 (building only). It’s called the Yardhouse.

    Completed in 2014, the 250 square meter building was designed and constructed by the firm using modest and, in some cases, prefabricated materials. Total construction costs were £291/m².

    The building has since been disassembled and put into storage until a buyer comes along, which tells you a lot about how it was built in the first place.

    But what’s great about the building is that, despite its modest roots, it was highly celebrated. The front facade is clad in colorful concrete tiles, which supposedly made it one of the most Instagrammed buildings in London.

    Here’s a photo of what that looked like when the building was still put together:

    image

    The front faced a “public yard” – hence all of the people in the photo and why it seems appropriate to call it a Yardhouse.

    According to The Modern House (they have the listing), the building is already under offer. So if you were in the market for a Yardhouse clad in multicolored concrete tiles, you may be too late.

    But perhaps you’ll draw some inspiration for your next project.

    Image: The Modern House

  • Are you challenging yourself personally?

    I’m not a huge believer in new year’s resolutions, as I much prefer the idea of continuous goal setting and improvement. But I like Mark Zuckerberg’s tradition of pursuing one “personal challenge” every year. One year it was to learn Mandarin. And this year it was to build a personal artificial intelligence tool. If you’re interested in AI, you can learn about the experience and his takeaways in this post.

    I am definitely interested in AI, but right now I’m actually thinking about his approach to personal challenges. This is a time of year when many of us are looking back at what we accomplished over the last 12 months and thinking about what we would like to accomplish in the next 12 months, as well as beyond. I know that I was doing some of that this past weekend. 

    I managed to check off many/most of the items on my 2016 list, but full disclosure: some of them are getting punted to 2017. I also modified certain items. I originally wanted BARED (Becoming A Real Estate Developer) to be a book, but instead it transformed into a new blog series. My most recent BARED post can be found, here.

    However, as I look back at all of the lists I’ve been making, I realize that virtually all of the goals are work related. They’re about completing this, growing that, and so on. That’s obviously important, but what about personal growth? Sure, one could argue that learning Mandarin is actually a prudent business move, but Zuckerberg claims to have been motivated more by personal reasons. And that’s great.

    So I’m revisiting my lists and thinking about ways in which I can challenge myself to grow not just as a professional, but also as a person. Right away, photography comes to mind as an obvious personal challenge, but I’d like to give it a bit more thought. If Mark Zuckerberg can find the time, then there’s no reason that you and I can’t as well.

    Do you have your own set of lists that you keep?

  • Detroit tests new QLINE streetcar

    Detroit has started testing its new streetcars on Woodward Avenue. Quicken Loans bought the naming rights to the line, so it’s now officially called the QLINE. If you’re British, this name probably won’t instil feelings of rapidity.

    Here’s a recent tweet from M1-Rail (click here if it doesn’t show up below):

    //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Note how the train is running curbside.

    There’s lots of debate about the economic benefits of streetcar/LRT over other transit solutions such as BRT. But if you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll probably know that I am a supporter of light rail.

    In the case of Detroit, I also think there’s symbolic importance to bringing back light rail to the core of the city. The last Detroit streetcar was shut down in 1956.

    It’s also worth mentioning how the streetcar line was funded. Below is a breakdown of funding sources dated 2014.

    image

    There may have been some changes since then, but it’s positive to see the public and private sectors come together, alongside a large infusion of philanthropic money (The Kresge Foundation).

    Many of the companies on the above list sponsored individual stations. The cost to do so was $3 million, which is why you see that number show up a few times. Compuware and JP Morgan Chase shared a station at $1.5 million each.

    Is this a transit funding model worth replicating?

  • A 50′s gas station in Berlin

    I have written about the Berlin-based publication Freunde von Freunden (FvF) before. I love the content that they put out – particularly their interviews. They’re personal and genuine. Pretty much the opposite of traditional marketing, though you could call some of it content marketing.

    One series that they do – called Home Stories – is done in collaboration with Siemens Home Appliances. What they do is explore innovative urban living solutions through the lenses of global city inhabitants. 

    There’s everyone from a marketing consultant who built a house boat to an architect who converted an old lingerie factory into an “antivilla” along the water.

    Below is a video of Juerg Judin explaining how and why he decided to convert an old 50′s gas station in Berlin into a home and gallery. Click here if you can’t see the video below.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPsbOT2dG9A?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

    In this case, he bought the gas station in 2005. But he first saw the for sale sign in 1992. And that was a good seven years after it was originally listed. So this property had been sitting for a while. 

    It’s hard to imagine a central property like this sitting for so long in a place like Toronto. But I think it’s partly opportunities such as these that have made Berlin the city that it is today. New ideas require old buildings.

  • U.S. street grids compared

    I like this comparison of street grids that Daniel Nairn prepared back in 2010:

    There’s huge variation here. On the one end you have cities like Carson City, Portland, and Providence, which have small blocks (180′ x 180′ and 200′ x 200′). And on the other end you have cities like Salt Lake City, which have massive blocks (660′ x 660′). 

    This variation creates very different experiences for both pedestrians and drivers. It is widely understood that small blocks are better for walking, which is perhaps why Salt Lake City is known as a driving city. (I just learned that they have “crosswalk flags” to help pedestrians safely cross the street. What does that tell you?)

    In the case of New York – with its irregular rectangular blocks – it is arguably one of the reasons why the avenues (short side of the rectangle) have such a different feel than the streets (long side of the rectangle). Walking north-south is more enjoyable than walking east-west.

    All of this is even more interesting in the context of the point I made in this post: once these urban grids get laid out, they’re pretty sticky. That has far reaching implications.

  • Coastal dilettantes and venture capital

    Chamath Palihapitiya – founder and CEO of a VC firm called Social Capital – recently penned an op-ed in The Information called: “The Sunk Cost Fallacy and the Future of Silicon Valley.”

    Chamath is one of the most outspoken voices in Silicon Valley and is openly critical about the way the industry generally functions today. Here are two excerpts from his op-ed piece:

    “Chronic diseases like obesity, diabetes and heart disease are ravaging much of the U.S. and the world. Automation is eliminating the jobs of millions of well-meaning, law-abiding men and women. Weather patterns are increasingly unpredictable, disrupting water and food supplies and displacing millions of people. But despite this trail of breadcrumbs of big problems and big markets, we still find it difficult to fund potentially big solutions. Instead, we keep doubling down on the easy things.”  

    “Easy short-term growth is now so highly valued in Silicon Valley that we often overlook technical innovation, sustainable long-term growth and meaningful progress in markets that matter. Every week adds to the corpus of press releases from companies with quick, fleeting growth overcapitalized beyond rationalization. And after too many years of this, Silicon Valley is now typecast as a monoculture of coastal dilettantes who float from one meaningless endeavor to another, tone deaf to real problems.”

    Social Capital was founded in response to these criticisms. Their mission is to improve society by using technology to solve big problems – problems like the ones mentioned above.

    Another firm with a similar mission is Obvious Ventures. They call what they do #worldpositive investing. Their goal is to only fund companies that deliver social and environmental benefits along with every dollar earned.

    It’s interesting to think about how capital gets allocated and whether or not it will result in meaningful benefits to the world. Because this is not just about venture capital. You could substitute venture capital for many other asset classes and ask similar questions.

  • Kanju (and the future of cities)

    There is so much interest in cities right now and I think that is absolutely wonderful. Earlier today my friend Derek shared a video with me on Twitter called, The Future of Cities. It’s by YouTuber Oscar Boyson, who I recognize from some of Casey Neistat’s videos, but whose own videos I have never watched before.

    I highly recommend you watch this video. It’s just over 18 minutes. If you can’t see the video below, click here.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOOWk5yCMMs?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

    It’s well-executed, a joy to watch, and packed full of information and ideas. There are soundbites from lots of well known urbanists (both living and dead). And I also love how Oscar crowdsourced ideas and content from cities all around the world.

    The title of this blog post will make sense once you’ve watched the video.

  • So how’s Uber doing?

    A travel expense management company called Certify recently analyzed over 10 million ground transportation receipts across North America for the 3-month period ending last September (2016). 

    And what they found was that, for the first time ever, Uber and Lyft exceeded traditional taxis and rental cars when it came to business expenses. Uber was at 48% and Lyft was at 4%. So together, these two platforms have more than half of this particular market.

    If you compare this to Certify’s data from the same quarter last year, “ride-hailing services” previously accounted for 34% of receipts, whereas taxis and rental cars were at 22% and 44%, respectively. So Uber is up in a big way.

    This may not be surprising for a lot of you, but I thought it would be valuable to check-in on what the numbers say. 

    I’m hit with two thoughts. Firstly, it’s not a question of mobile apps superseding traditional taxis; it’s a question of one company taking over. And secondly, people seem to be favoring Uber over driving themselves around. I know I’ve been heading in that direction.

    Those are two powerful trends.

  • BARED: Howard Cohen, Context Development

    image

    Howard Cohen was initially trained as an architect. But throughout his schooling he gradually became more interested in urban design and city planning. So after graduating in the late 1960’s from the University of Manitoba with a degree in architecture, he took a job within the planning department at the City of Winnipeg. There he helped to author the “Downtown Winnipeg Plan” and quickly earned the reputation as one of the most creative people in the department.

    But after about a year and a half on the job, he decided that he wanted a change in scenery and so he quit and took off to Europe with his wife. Upon returning, with no money to his name, he managed to strum up two potential job opportunities; both of which were, thankfully, not in Winnipeg. One was an architecture job in New York City and the other was a planning position for a neighborhood on the east side of downtown Toronto known as Trefann Court.

    Since planning had become more interesting to him than architecture, Howard decided to fly to Toronto for the job interview. He vividly remembers staying at the Sutton Place Hotel – which is today being converted to condos – and walking down Bay Street to City Hall for his interview. He also remembers being so nervous that he had to smoke a joint prior to, in order to calm his nerves. The interview was with the chief planner, deputy chief planner, and with local residents from the area. They offered him the job on the spot.

    He accepted the position in 1970 and stayed at the City of Toronto until 1978. Howard was contemporaneous to figures such as John Sewell – the former mayor of Toronto who was also heavily involved in Trefann Court. Howard features prominently in John’s book: “How We Changed Toronto – The inside story of twelve creative, tumultuous years in civic life, 1969-1980.”

    Interestingly enough, during his time at the City, some of the land use policies that Howard was championing were actually quite contentious within the development community. For instance, Howard believed that Toronto’s downtown residential neighborhoods – neighborhoods such as Cabbagetown – should be preserved, and not razed and turned into replicas of St. James Town. This is an outcome that I am sure most of us today now appreciate.

    However, this is not to say that he was anti-development. Howard also firmly believed that high-density residential should be encouraged throughout the core of the city. We take this for granted now, but he remembers being called a zealot at an Ontario Municipal Board hearing because of his belief that people may actually want to live at the corner of Bay Street and Dundas Street. This was supposed to be a place for working and shopping, but definitely not living.

    Towards the end of his tenure at the City, Howard had become for all intents and purposes the chief planner of Toronto. He was the guy. However, without the actual title he was starting to get restless and decided to look elsewhere for opportunities.

    In 1972, the federal government formed a new Crown corporation known as the Harbourfront Corporation. This was after having expropriated over 100 acres of derelict industrial land along Toronto’s waterfront. The mandate was to revitalize the central waterfront, but after failing for 5 years to make anything meaningful happen, responsibility was ultimately turned over to local leadership.

    Shortly thereafter, Howard left the City and became the first head of Harbourfront Corporation. As coincidence would have it, he was offered the position on the same day that David Crombie – who was mayor at the time – called him to formally offer him the role of chief planner. However, Howard felt that there were more exciting challenges at Harbourfront and so that’s where he went.

    One of his first tasks at Harbourfront was to write the business plan that would set the course for the corporation and allow it to become self-sustaining. The model became about leveraging the value of the corporation’s land to not only create a thriving mixed-use community, but to also create a set of cultural institutions along the waterfront.

    The legacy of Howard’s work can be found in the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, the Harbourfront Centre outdoor skating rink, the Queen’s Quay streetcar, as well as a number of other initiatives ranging from cultural programs to development projects. Some of his development deals included the affordable housing built at Bathurst Quay, the Admiral Hotel, and the Queen’s Quay Terminal developed by Olympia & York – a pioneering mixed-use development that to this day serves as one of the most important anchors on Toronto’s waterfront. It was also through these development projects that Howard would increasingly get into the mindset of a developer – something that would obviously serve him well later on.

    Despite being a financial success, Harbourfront Corporation was ultimately disbanded, partly due to controversy over some of the high-rise towers being developed along the waterfront. At this point, Howard was 44 years old and had spent his entire working career in the public sector. With the experience he had gained at the City and at Harbourfront Corporation, he decided that it was time to move over to the private sector and make some money. He went to work for a developer.

    Howard landed at Murray Goldman’s development company – the Goldman Group – and would spend 4 years there as President. He didn’t necessarily have all the finance and marketing chops, but he did have a lot of other relevant experience. Perhaps his best known project of this era is the Castle Hill townhouse complex at the foot of Casa Loma.

    After stepping down from the Goldman Group in the early 90’s, Howard then turned to consulting. This was a period of time when many in the industry were licking their wounds, but Howard managed to amass a diverse set of clients, including Innis College at the University of Toronto and the nascent Design Exchange. Initially hired as a consultant in 1992, Howard would later get asked to head up in the Design Exchange in 1994. He would spend 2 years in this role and raise over $7 million in donor money during one of the worst recessions in recent history.

    As his consulting business chugged along, Howard would later reconnect with an architect by the name of Lloyd Alter. Lloyd had done some work for the Goldman Group when Howard was there and they decided to join forces and create a larger consulting business known as Cohen & Alter. Business was good for the two of them. They were busy.

    They hadn’t really planned on getting into the development business, but then one day an agent came knocking with a small piece of land on Niagara Street. It was located in today’s King West neighborhood. Barbara Hall was mayor at the time and the city was starting to talk about new policies to open up “The Kings” to revitalization. “The Kings” being the two shoulders of downtown Toronto: King Street West and King Street East.

    Toronto was still in a recession at the time and nobody wanted the site. It was also fairly non-consensus to think that people would want to live in these gritty old parts of downtown. Only zealots believed this to be true. So the agent told Howard and Lloyd that they could option the site for $1 – basically tie it up for free.

    This was the birth of 20 Niagara.

    Since the recession had also left architects without work, they managed to get Peter Clewes (today of architectsAlliance) to defer his fees on the project. The deal was that when the project got off the ground, everyone would get paid. It was the ultimate in bootstrapping.

    Around this same time, Howard and Lloyd met Tom Schwartz, who would become a kind of mentor and advisor to the aspiring developers. Tom, who today is the President and CEO of CAPREIT, was already a successful developer through the founding of Intraurban Projects in 1976.

    Tom introduced Howard and Lloyd to a company called Equivest, which was owned by Gerry Schwartz (of Onex fame) and Stephen Gross. Equivest would become the financial backer for their fledgling project and set the stage for a go-forward funding model.

    Howard and Lloyd would also turn to a guy named Brad Lamb to sell the project. Brad had just started his own brokerage after working under Harry Stinson – a real estate broker turned developer who is perhaps best known for his cheesy late night infomercials. Brad had two employees at the time and would go on to personally sell 20 Niagara Street.

    20 Niagara launched in 1996.

    The project contained 30 condo units and was about 40,000 square feet. It took a year to sell the first 20 units – at some absurdly low price – and ultimately didn’t make any money for both Howard and Lloyd. Howard would spend the next two projects paying back the hangovers from 20 Niagara. It did, however, give birth to Context Development.

    Howard and Lloyd ended up parting ways after 20 Niagara, but the partnership of Howard Cohen, Stephen Gross, and Peter Clewes would go on to build some of the most design-forward and contextually sensitive projects in the city. The core philosophical beliefs were that housing of every varietal belongs downtown and that modern architecture has a place in the mass market. Again these principles may seem obvious today, but they weren’t as obvious in the late 90’s.

    Context Development would later develop adaptive reuse projects such as the Kensington Market Lofts and the Tip Top Lofts, award winning projects such as the Mozo, and wildly innovative projects such as the District Lofts (pictured above). This 14-storey “twin tower” condominium used Le Corbusier’s “skip-stop” system to create two-storey through units. Context would also go on to develop two buildings that I have personally called home – one of which I am sitting in right now as I write this post.

    For me, the story of Context has always had a particular resonance. As a trained architect who then entered the development business, Howard’s story showed me that I too could leave the world of architecture and do something positive for cities. He was a significant inspiration for me early on in my career when I was figuring out which path I wanted to take.

    Every developer brings their own background and sensibilities to their projects. And in the case of Howard’s projects, I know that Toronto is a better city because of it. Thank you, Howard.

    Image: District Lofts via Context

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    This is the third post in my blog series called BARED (Becoming A Real Estate Developer). If you’d like to be featured in this series, send me an email or tweet me. The links are at the top of this page. Also, email subscribe to this blog to stay in the loop.