I was recently talking to my good friend Jeremiah Shamess about the current state of development land sales in Toronto (he does this for a living) and he said something to me that I found really interesting.
He said that because the market is so competitive, you can really only win development sites in one of two ways. Either you’re willing to spend the most money or you see something and have a vision that nobody else sees.
And it was this second piece that really stood out to me because it reminds me of one of my favorite investing frameworks.
Warren Buffet is famous for saying that you should be fearful when others are greedy and you should be greedy when others are fearful. And what I’m about to talk about is really that same core philosophy.
Here’s how venture capitalist Fred Wilson put it (reiterating something that
I was recently talking to my good friend Jeremiah Shamess about the current state of development land sales in Toronto (he does this for a living) and he said something to me that I found really interesting.
He said that because the market is so competitive, you can really only win development sites in one of two ways. Either you’re willing to spend the most money or you see something and have a vision that nobody else sees.
And it was this second piece that really stood out to me because it reminds me of one of my favorite investing frameworks.
Warren Buffet is famous for saying that you should be fearful when others are greedy and you should be greedy when others are fearful. And what I’m about to talk about is really that same core philosophy.
Here’s how venture capitalist Fred Wilson put it (reiterating something that
Bill Gurley
said):
I saw Bill Gurley say that you can only make money by being right about something that most people think is wrong. His logic was that you can’t make money by being wrong. And you can’t make money by being right about something everyone else knows. So you have to be right about something that most people think is wrong. I really like that framework.
But this doesn’t just apply to technology companies or stocks. It applies to city building, most industries, and probably most things in life if you think about it.
If all you’re doing are things that everyone else is doing, then how can you expect to outperform? You’re going to revert to the mean.
Take, for example, billionaire Dan Gilbert and Detroit. Not everyone believes that Detroit will come back. In fact, I suspect there are probably more people who think it won’t come back, than people who think it will. Otherwise, it would already be back.
As you’ve likely heard, over the past four years Gilbert has become one of Detroit’s single-largest commercial landowners, renovating the city with the energy and impact of a modern-day Robert Moses, albeit bankrolled with his own money. He’s purchased and updated more than 60 properties downtown, at a total cost of $1.3 billion. He moved his own employees into many of them–12,000 in all, including 6,500 new hires–and cajoled other companies such as Chrysler, Microsoft and Twitter to follow.
If/when Gilbert proves to be right about Detroit, then he will have been right about something that most people thought was wrong. And because of that, he will no doubt make a lot of money.
If you’re a regular reader of Architect This City, you’ll know that I generally like to include at least one photo with every post. Sometimes I run out of time and I don’t always do that, but that is at least the intent.
You might have also noticed that my go-to for stock photography is 500px. That is the case for a few reasons.
I find the photos to be of higher quality than any other service. I can easily “embed” them into my posts while giving appropriate credit to the author and linking back to 500px. The company was founded by a good friend of mine and snowboarding compadre. And the company is made in Toronto.
Last month, Curated Properties submitted a rezoning and site plan application for a 6-storey, 25-unit building at 45 Dovercourt Road in Toronto. The project is known to the market as Cabin and you can
Bill Gurley
said):
I saw Bill Gurley say that you can only make money by being right about something that most people think is wrong. His logic was that you can’t make money by being wrong. And you can’t make money by being right about something everyone else knows. So you have to be right about something that most people think is wrong. I really like that framework.
But this doesn’t just apply to technology companies or stocks. It applies to city building, most industries, and probably most things in life if you think about it.
If all you’re doing are things that everyone else is doing, then how can you expect to outperform? You’re going to revert to the mean.
Take, for example, billionaire Dan Gilbert and Detroit. Not everyone believes that Detroit will come back. In fact, I suspect there are probably more people who think it won’t come back, than people who think it will. Otherwise, it would already be back.
As you’ve likely heard, over the past four years Gilbert has become one of Detroit’s single-largest commercial landowners, renovating the city with the energy and impact of a modern-day Robert Moses, albeit bankrolled with his own money. He’s purchased and updated more than 60 properties downtown, at a total cost of $1.3 billion. He moved his own employees into many of them–12,000 in all, including 6,500 new hires–and cajoled other companies such as Chrysler, Microsoft and Twitter to follow.
If/when Gilbert proves to be right about Detroit, then he will have been right about something that most people thought was wrong. And because of that, he will no doubt make a lot of money.
If you’re a regular reader of Architect This City, you’ll know that I generally like to include at least one photo with every post. Sometimes I run out of time and I don’t always do that, but that is at least the intent.
You might have also noticed that my go-to for stock photography is 500px. That is the case for a few reasons.
I find the photos to be of higher quality than any other service. I can easily “embed” them into my posts while giving appropriate credit to the author and linking back to 500px. The company was founded by a good friend of mine and snowboarding compadre. And the company is made in Toronto.
Last month, Curated Properties submitted a rezoning and site plan application for a 6-storey, 25-unit building at 45 Dovercourt Road in Toronto. The project is known to the market as Cabin and you can
The project immediately caught my attention (because of its design, because of its branding, and because I like the work of Curated), so I decided to dig in further and get a copy of their architectural drawings. Development applications and their supporting documents are all public. Anyone can request a copy. But the city isn’t great at making this known.
Since I’m excited to see more of these small scale urban infill projects in the city, today I thought I would highlight some of its key features and some of the things that are being proposed in order to make a project like this work.
The Homes
First of all, 100% of the suites are 2-storey. 76% of the suites are also 2 bedroom or larger.
The result is that the project is essentially a series of townhomes stacked on top of each other. I suspect that this will appeal to more end-users as opposed to investors. Hopefully, it will also attract more families to the area.
Here’s the third floor plan:
You probably can’t see it, but all of the suites are marked as “Level 1”, obviously indicating that there’s more than one level.
Also worth mentioning is the notch or cut out on the north side of the building. This is what makes the 2 suites in the middle of the floor plate possible. In order for them to have windows, they need to be setback from the (north) property line. It also means those suites get terraces.
The Parking
Turning to the ground floor plan, it’s interesting to see that they are proposing 8 triple car stackers that will be accessible off the rear laneway (right side on the plan below). That equates to 24 parking spaces in the building (8 bays x 3 cars per stacker).
On small urban sites like this one, it can be very difficult to accommodate parking. So it’s inevitable that we will see more parking stackers in the city and a continual reduction in parking minimums.
The Construction
Finally, I have been told that this project is expected to be framed in wood, as opposed to reinforced concrete, which is more typical of condominiums in Toronto.
This change was done with the intent of reducing construction costs so that it becomes more feasible to develop smaller infill sites such as this one. So expect to see more of this.
I know that a lot of people would like to remain in the city even when they start having children. But it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find affordable low-rise homes. And not everyone wants to live in a high-rise tower.
That’s why I think we will see more, not less, low-rise and mid-rise infill projects like Cabin. If you’re interested in this topic, also check out a post I wrote called 3 stages of intensification.
The project immediately caught my attention (because of its design, because of its branding, and because I like the work of Curated), so I decided to dig in further and get a copy of their architectural drawings. Development applications and their supporting documents are all public. Anyone can request a copy. But the city isn’t great at making this known.
Since I’m excited to see more of these small scale urban infill projects in the city, today I thought I would highlight some of its key features and some of the things that are being proposed in order to make a project like this work.
The Homes
First of all, 100% of the suites are 2-storey. 76% of the suites are also 2 bedroom or larger.
The result is that the project is essentially a series of townhomes stacked on top of each other. I suspect that this will appeal to more end-users as opposed to investors. Hopefully, it will also attract more families to the area.
Here’s the third floor plan:
You probably can’t see it, but all of the suites are marked as “Level 1”, obviously indicating that there’s more than one level.
Also worth mentioning is the notch or cut out on the north side of the building. This is what makes the 2 suites in the middle of the floor plate possible. In order for them to have windows, they need to be setback from the (north) property line. It also means those suites get terraces.
The Parking
Turning to the ground floor plan, it’s interesting to see that they are proposing 8 triple car stackers that will be accessible off the rear laneway (right side on the plan below). That equates to 24 parking spaces in the building (8 bays x 3 cars per stacker).
On small urban sites like this one, it can be very difficult to accommodate parking. So it’s inevitable that we will see more parking stackers in the city and a continual reduction in parking minimums.
The Construction
Finally, I have been told that this project is expected to be framed in wood, as opposed to reinforced concrete, which is more typical of condominiums in Toronto.
This change was done with the intent of reducing construction costs so that it becomes more feasible to develop smaller infill sites such as this one. So expect to see more of this.
I know that a lot of people would like to remain in the city even when they start having children. But it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find affordable low-rise homes. And not everyone wants to live in a high-rise tower.
That’s why I think we will see more, not less, low-rise and mid-rise infill projects like Cabin. If you’re interested in this topic, also check out a post I wrote called 3 stages of intensification.
