This morning (Friday, July 8th) at 11AM eastern time, the global street artist Phlegm will start work on a giant 8-storey mural at the corner of Yonge + St. Clair in midtown Toronto. It’s going up on the west elevation of 1 St. Clair West.

Here’s what it will look like when it’s complete:

The piece is intended to be experienced at two different scales. From afar, you read it as a human figure embracing itself. (See it?) Once you get closer, you are then drawn into an intricate interpretation of the Toronto landscape – both built and natural.

Embedded within are depictions of the Royal Ontario Museum (including Daniel Libeskind’s Crystal), the SkyDome (yes, the SkyDome), the St. Lawrence Market (my hood), the CN Tower (obligatory), as well as other landmarks in the city. It’s going to be awesome.

The project is a STEPS Initiative and it is being supported by the City of Toronto, Slate Asset Management, CBRE, CIBC, and a few others. They have also setup a great website with a live webcam, so that you can follow along as the artist works.

At the time of writing this post, nothing yet has happened. But by the time it reaches you (email subscribers) it should be well underway. The hashtag for all of this is #PHLEGMPAINTS. 

Big things are starting to happen at Yonge + St. Clair.

Yesterday I received a comment on my post about service and product companies with a suggestion to check out an interesting Fast Company article talking about the future of work (thank you Amy). The article was based on a research report – commissioned by CBRE and a real estate developer in China (Genesis) – called Fast Forward 2030: The Future of Work and the Workplace.

This is a topic that’s getting a lot airtime right now because Millennials are starting to impact work in a big way. But what’s interesting about it is how broad these impacts will be. Changes in how we work will affect the way we design our cities; the way architects and developers build and lease space; the type of people and roles companies will need to hire and create; and so on.

Here’s a snippet from the report:

“Providers of commercial buildings and places to work will need to develop new, sometimes counter intuitive, business models and work with partners who understand service and experience in order to compete with emerging workplace competitors. Successful providers will work with tenants to unlock ‘win win’ solutions that reduce occupier costs, increase flexibility, and simultaneously provide enhanced levels of community, amenity and user wellbeing. Cities will have a role to lead and nurture changes that will support the changing landscape of work.”

I plan to go through the report in more detail this weekend, but I did want to point out one thing. When business leaders from around the world were asked what their biggest competitive advantage would be by the year 2030, the top choice was: the ability to attract and retain top talent. This topped organizational vision and even the ability to innovate.

This might not come as a surprise to some of you, but it’s worth repeating. And in many ways, it’s a chain that begins first with cities. 

If you’ve ever watched The Startup Kids documentary, you’ll know that when Alexander Ljung (CEO of Soundcloud.com) was about to found his company, he actually started by first traveling around Europe looking for the coolest city in which to base his company. The last city on his trip was Berlin and that just so happened to be the team’s favorite. So that’s where Soundcloud was founded.

My point with that story is simply that the “workplace” of today – forget the future – means so much more than just your rentable area. Yes, that’s important. But there’s a lot more to consider when trying to get the best people. Cities play a huge role.

Last Friday the Toronto Star published an article talking about the growing demand for character office buildings in submarkets outside of Toronto’s core. Specifically, it was talking about the Downtown West and Liberty Village submarkets (citing a report from CBRE).

I’m sure this isn’t news to most of you. Cool loft spaces have been popular for years. But it’s interesting to look at how rents and vacancy rates have changed for these submarkets and product types over time.

Since 2002, average (net) asking rents for brick-and-beam buildings in the west end have gone from $16.12 to $22.23 per square foot. Almost a 38% increase. By comparison, office space in the core has gone from $28.40 to $32.38 per square foot. A 14% increase.

And if you look at vacancy rates since 2007, you’ll see that the character office market has really tightened up over the past 4 years or so. There’s growing demand for a limited amount of supply.

With the growth that the downtown core is seeing and with the rise of Toronto as a creative startup hub, I’m sure we’ll continue to see strong demand for this type of space. But there’s only so much of it to go around. So I think we’ll also end up seeing greater interest in the east side of downtown and also more interesting new builds.

Images/Charts: CBRE