This morning I was interviewed for a Montreal-produced TV show called Ports D’Attache. The English version of the show is called “Waterfront Cities of the World” and it airs on Discovery.
Here’s a list of all the cities they’ve visited in the first 4 seasons and here are all the shows from the first 2 seasons in English (which you can watch online for free).
Rather than a travel show, it’s a look at the “spirit and soul” of each waterfront city through the lens of “local personalities.” There’s definitely a lot of fodder for city geeks and so I thought you all might find the series interesting.
Toronto was the last stop of season 5. The other cities from this season include Philadelphia, Budapest, Rome, Taipei and Kuala Lumpur, to name only a few of them.
I’m glad that they decided to come to Toronto and I’m delighted that they invited me to be on the show. The team was great and, if you haven’t already noticed, I love supporting this city.
The show will first be released in French (with my comments dubbed over), but an English version will follow. Once that version is released, I’ll circulate a link.
Want further evidence that technology and the internet are going to dramatically transform many “non-tech” industries such as real estate?
Take a look at 1351 H Street NE in Washington D.C (pictured above). It houses a hybrid retail store and restaurant and is probably the first truly crowdfunded real estate project.
The project was completed using a platform called Fundrise, which I’ve written about before here on Architect This City. Their vision is to completely democratize real estate investment by removing middlepeople and outdated regulations that restrict who and how people can invest in real estate.
To accomplish this, the founders of Fundrise went out in 2011 and bought the building located at 1351 H Street NE for $825,000. The goal was for it to act as their proof of concept.
They then spent a significant amount of time and money figuring out how to make it legal for small and local investors to participate in the project (as opposed to just accredited investors). It was ultimately done through a “local public offering” filed with the SEC.
So how does it work?
In the case of 1351 H Street NE, they first went out to the local community and asked them what they wanted to see. That’s how they ended up with a unique retail store / restaurant. It’s what the community wanted.
Once this was established, they went out and issued 3,250 shares and crowdfunded $325,000 from 175 local investors. This was for an ownership share in both the building and the future business. The average investment amount was $2,000, but people were able to invest as little as $100.
This is an incredible accomplishment. It takes real estate investment and development to a local level and really empowers small entrepreneurs to start businesses that may have been previously unfundable by traditional sources.
I don’t know what you think, but I think this is the beginning of a powerful transformation. Many of the structures that are currently in place were formed at a time when it wouldn’t have been practical to crowdsource ideas and crowdfund money. But now that is very possible. It was just done.
Image: Maketto
Ace Hotel, LA by Dan Hogman on 500px
The word on the street right now is that Ace Hotel will be opening up a location in Toronto’s Fashion District at 51 Camden Street.
Unlike its other outposts around the world, which entailed the renovation of a historic building, this one will be a new build. And according to HotelChatter, Shim-Sutcliffe Architects have been retained for the project.
Already a demolition permit has been issued for the existing 3 storey office building:
For those of you who may not be familiar with the Ace Hotel brand, the first hotel opened in Portland in 1999 when 3 friends transformed a halfway house into an affordable hotel for creative types.
Since then, the hotel has expanded to New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Palm Springs, as well as many other cities, and has become a kind of cultural institution for the creative class.
I’m excited that they have (allegedly) picked Toronto for their next property and I’m excited that Shim-Sutcliffe will be (supposedly) designing it.