Good morning, and welcome back to work and school.

I remember a moment very early on in my development career when I was sitting in a boardroom with dozens of "gray hairs" and the topic of Toronto's Union Station revitalization came up. Specifically, the proposed plan to dig out a new basement and add significant retail throughout the station. This was before construction had started in 2010 and it was considered a rather novel move.

At the time, Union Station was essentially a transit hub with a few ancillary retail offerings like Jugo Juice and Cinnabon (for the good smells). My comment was along the lines of "Finally, more retail, what a great idea," but everyone looked at me like I had three heads. The consensus in the room was, "It'll never work, Brandon." And what was implied was that I just didn't have enough real estate experience to get that.

But what I didn't understand was their reaction. Union Station is the busiest mobility hub in the country. Hundreds of thousands of people pass through it each day. Today, I think the number is somewhere around 300,000 people. This is like the entire population of Markham or Vaughan passing through one building every single day. It's hard to imagine a better anchor than rail. Surely, if you put retail in front of this foot traffic, you'll be able to monetize it!

Fast forward to today.

Over the weekend, Bianca and I took the subway to a Raptors game. As we walked through the concourse, the first thing I said to her was, "I really love what they have done here. Union finally feels like a station fit for a global city like Toronto." It feels grand, there are global retailers like Uniqlo, Shake Shack, Arabica, and many others, and the wayfinding seems to only be getting better. The pathway to Scotiabank Arena felt deliberate — finally.

I have no firsthand experience with the revitalization program or the leasing at Union Station. So I couldn't tell you quantitatively how the stores and restaurants are performing. I also recognize that construction was massively delayed and ran over budget. But anecdotally, I can say that you do have to wait a long time for a burger from Shake Shack, even late at night. The place is always busy.

Union Station seems well on its way to being a commercial success, and it seems to be establishing itself not only as a mixed-use rail hub, but as a destination in downtown Toronto. If any of you have firsthand experience, please drop a comment below.

The new Finch West LRT line opened this past weekend in Toronto. This is a 10.3-kilometer transit line that runs from Humber College to Finch West subway station, and replaces a bus route that was previously one of the busiest in the city.

It's also a line that dates back to 2007. I vividly remember reading about this proposal while I was in grad school in the US. Some of you might remember that it was part of Mayor David Miller's Transit City proposal. Since then, the project got cancelled and revived at least once, which is partially why it took some 18 years to complete.

Transit openings are typically exciting. A bunch of people lined up on Sunday morning in the cold to be first to ride it. I slept in instead of doing that, but I do fancy myself a transit nerd. Whenever I'm in a new city, I always try to take (or at least test out) their transit system.

And when the Eglinton LRT finally opens, I do have aspirations to ride from end to end while spinning house and techno music from the rear car. (I have yet to reach out to the TTC to see if they might be interested in accommodating such an activity.)

But it's not all excitement. Now that the Finch line is open, the customer reviews are in and the general consensus seems to be that it sucks:

A CBC Toronto reporter rode the entire 10.3-kilometre line from east to west Monday morning, finding it took roughly 55 minutes to complete. As a reference point, over 400 runners ran this year's Toronto Marathon 10-kilometre event in under 55 minutes.

CBC Toronto's eastbound return trip to Finch West Station was about eight minutes shorter, clocking in at roughly 47 minutes. Still, several riders Monday told CBC Radio's Metro Morning that the previous bus route on Finch Avenue W. was faster and had more stops along the way, making it easier to access.

So now Torontonians are rightly questioning why our various levels of government spent ~$3.75 billion and took 18 years to build a line that performs worse than what was already there. Hmm. Good question.

Good morning, and welcome back to work and school.

I remember a moment very early on in my development career when I was sitting in a boardroom with dozens of "gray hairs" and the topic of Toronto's Union Station revitalization came up. Specifically, the proposed plan to dig out a new basement and add significant retail throughout the station. This was before construction had started in 2010 and it was considered a rather novel move.

At the time, Union Station was essentially a transit hub with a few ancillary retail offerings like Jugo Juice and Cinnabon (for the good smells). My comment was along the lines of "Finally, more retail, what a great idea," but everyone looked at me like I had three heads. The consensus in the room was, "It'll never work, Brandon." And what was implied was that I just didn't have enough real estate experience to get that.

But what I didn't understand was their reaction. Union Station is the busiest mobility hub in the country. Hundreds of thousands of people pass through it each day. Today, I think the number is somewhere around 300,000 people. This is like the entire population of Markham or Vaughan passing through one building every single day. It's hard to imagine a better anchor than rail. Surely, if you put retail in front of this foot traffic, you'll be able to monetize it!

Fast forward to today.

Over the weekend, Bianca and I took the subway to a Raptors game. As we walked through the concourse, the first thing I said to her was, "I really love what they have done here. Union finally feels like a station fit for a global city like Toronto." It feels grand, there are global retailers like Uniqlo, Shake Shack, Arabica, and many others, and the wayfinding seems to only be getting better. The pathway to Scotiabank Arena felt deliberate — finally.

I have no firsthand experience with the revitalization program or the leasing at Union Station. So I couldn't tell you quantitatively how the stores and restaurants are performing. I also recognize that construction was massively delayed and ran over budget. But anecdotally, I can say that you do have to wait a long time for a burger from Shake Shack, even late at night. The place is always busy.

Union Station seems well on its way to being a commercial success, and it seems to be establishing itself not only as a mixed-use rail hub, but as a destination in downtown Toronto. If any of you have firsthand experience, please drop a comment below.

The new Finch West LRT line opened this past weekend in Toronto. This is a 10.3-kilometer transit line that runs from Humber College to Finch West subway station, and replaces a bus route that was previously one of the busiest in the city.

It's also a line that dates back to 2007. I vividly remember reading about this proposal while I was in grad school in the US. Some of you might remember that it was part of Mayor David Miller's Transit City proposal. Since then, the project got cancelled and revived at least once, which is partially why it took some 18 years to complete.

Transit openings are typically exciting. A bunch of people lined up on Sunday morning in the cold to be first to ride it. I slept in instead of doing that, but I do fancy myself a transit nerd. Whenever I'm in a new city, I always try to take (or at least test out) their transit system.

And when the Eglinton LRT finally opens, I do have aspirations to ride from end to end while spinning house and techno music from the rear car. (I have yet to reach out to the TTC to see if they might be interested in accommodating such an activity.)

But it's not all excitement. Now that the Finch line is open, the customer reviews are in and the general consensus seems to be that it sucks:

A CBC Toronto reporter rode the entire 10.3-kilometre line from east to west Monday morning, finding it took roughly 55 minutes to complete. As a reference point, over 400 runners ran this year's Toronto Marathon 10-kilometre event in under 55 minutes.

CBC Toronto's eastbound return trip to Finch West Station was about eight minutes shorter, clocking in at roughly 47 minutes. Still, several riders Monday told CBC Radio's Metro Morning that the previous bus route on Finch Avenue W. was faster and had more stops along the way, making it easier to access.

So now Torontonians are rightly questioning why our various levels of government spent ~$3.75 billion and took 18 years to build a line that performs worse than what was already there. Hmm. Good question.