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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  • CloudKitchens quietly expands across Latin America

    Despite having somewhere around 4,000 employees and being valued at upwards of $15 billion (2021 figure), CloudKitchens remains an incredibly secretive company. In 2020, it was reported that they had spent over $130 million in the preceding two years on properties in about two dozen cities, and this week the Financial Times reported that they have been quietly building “dark kitchens” across Latin America, alongside a new food and convenience goods business called Pik N’ Pak.

    The way this all supposedly works is that the “dark kitchens” prepare the food for delivery and pick-up takeaway, and any excess space within these buildings is used to store convenience goods like over-the-counter medicines and pet foods. I guess it is literally about picking and packing various items that you can then attach to takeout orders. In both cases, the food and goods are delivered to customers using local app companies such as Uber Eats.

    All of this appears to represent a shift in the supply chain for takeout food and various convenience goods. But what I am really curious about right now is what the real estate footprint of this network looks like within our cities. What is the optimal square footage of a ghost kitchen? What radius do they serve? And how does this ultimately change the landscape of our cities? I don’t know the answers to these questions, but change appears to be underway. Here’s an excerpt from the above FT article:

    “…the growth of dark kitchens across Latin America has caused controversy in certain cities. The proliferation in São Paulo, the largest city in the Americas, sparked objections from residents living nearby, with banners against new facilities appearing in well-heeled neighbourhoods. The town hall has proposed local regulation of dark kitchens and earlier this year placed a temporary ban on the issue of new licences. People have complained about noise, smells, smoke and motorcycle drivers — known colloquially as motoboys — waiting outside to collect orders. One unhappy local said his son had been nicknamed “bacon” and bullied in school because of the odour on his clothes, according to Cris Monteiro, a city councilwoman.”

    Travis Kalanick seems to have a knack for upsetting people and changing the way our cities operate. Although, the same could be said about a lot of other startups.

  • New NFT collection — Utah

    Our week of working remotely in the mountains of Utah has come to an end. Being on mountain time meant early mornings every day. But it also meant being able to enjoy the evenings, including sunsets like the one shown here at the top of Ensign Peak. This was my first time really experiencing the Salt Lake City area in the summer, and I’m grateful for the opportunity. It is a beautiful place, and one that still feels under the radar once you exclude its global draw as a ski and snowboard destination. I also had a great time capturing it on my camera. So I’m excited to share my latest NFT photography collection — Utah. All of the photos were taken on my Fujifilm X-T3 (35mm) and can be viewed and purchased over here on Foundation.

  • The fast-foodification of cities

    Greg Isenberg recently wrote about what he refers to as the fast-foodification of everything — including cities. His arguments are that (1) we have reached peak sameness (Toronto is largely indistinguishable from, say, Sydney) and (2) the best brands and companies going forward will be local, unique, and community-driven.

    I don’t know how to assess whether we have reached peak sameness, but I do know that, whatever we are experiencing right now, is at a minimum 100 years in the making. The International Style (of architecture), which emerged after WWI, is exactly what the name suggests. The intent was to fashion an approach to architecture that worked anywhere in the world. Location, climate, and context were all irrelevant.

    This approach has been widely criticized for the reasons you might expect and for the reasons that Isenberg outlines in his post. But sameness is not exclusively the result of European architects who wanted to eschew ornament and local flourishes. As the world continues to globalize and become “smaller”, there is an inevitability to this growing and continued sameness. Business wants economies of scale.

    But there is no question that, more than ever, people are craving unique and local experiences and places. And if you can create that in our globalized world, you are going to win.

  • Salt Lake City’s urban street grid

    Salt Lake City is not a walking city. The blocks are too big (660 feet x 660 feet) and the streets are too wide (132 feet) for that. This has translated into many of the streets have upwards of 6 lanes. To put this into further context, here is a block comparison chart from 99% Invisible:

    In the past, I have called this inheritance one of the greatest city building challenges. Because once you’ve designed a city around the car, it can be hard to move away from that. But as I have also said in the past, there are, of course, lots of things that can be done to make a place more hospitable to pedestrians.

    What is also interesting is that, according to 99% Invisible, the original intent for Salt Lake City’s urban grid was not for its large 660 x 660 blocks to serve as a rigid and immutable plan for the city. The intent was that its large blocks would be further subdivided into smaller blocks as the city grew and developed.

    Other than maybe a few examples, this never happened. Salt Lake City’s large blocks remain a defining characteristic of the city. But who is to say it’s too late for change?

  • Q2-2022 land prices in the Greater Toronto Area

    Bullpen Consulting just released its latest land insights reports for the Greater Toronto Area. For the period of Q2-2022, Ben Myers and the team identified 46 high-density residential land transactions with an average price of $95 per buildable square foot. This is down from $112 pbsf in Q1.

    In the core of the city (former City of Toronto), the average price for Q2-2022 was $135 pbsf. In North York it was $103 pbsf. And in Scarborough it was $50 pbsf. Overall land prices are down about 15% from last quarter (though it’s important to note that quarterly transactions can represent a relatively small sample size).

    We have spoken before about how land prices tend to be fairly sticky in the face of changing cost structures. But what we are seeing right now is a bit of a perfect storm:

    • Development charges (here in Toronto) are set to increase by 49%
    • Hard costs have seen double digit increases (with some inputs increasing by 30-40%)
    • Inclusionary zoning is on the horizon and will add another additional cost to new housing
    • And rising interest rates are both increasing project costs (higher interest charges) and slowing the macro economy

    All of this is naturally causing developers to be more cautious when it comes buying new land. And we are seeing that in the above pricing. But at the same time, this dip in pricing is not going to be enough to absorb all of the additional costs that new housing projects now face in today’s market.

    If you’d like to download a full copy of Bullpen’s report, click here.

  • A discussion about Adam Neumann’s new residential apartment startup — Flow

    This an interesting discussion about Adam Neumann’s new startup Flow (which I recently wrote about here).

    More specifically though, the discussion is about venture capital firms backing “failed” entrepreneurs, and whether or not Flow can really be that much more valuable than your typical apartment REIT.

    In its simplest form, Flow might just end up being an apartment company with a strong national brand and a consistent resident experience. But maybe that’s all it needs to be.

    If the link doesn’t already do it for you, jump to the 7:19 mark to start with this discussion. After Flow, the podcast moves on to housing policy in the Bay Area, Houston, and Miami. So you may also want to stick around for that.

    Thank you Ocean Jangda for sending this over.

  • Accessible modernism

    One of the most extraordinary things about Salt Lake City is that you can land at its airport and then, in 20-30 minutes, you’re in the mountains looking at landscapes like this:

    By my estimation, this makes it the most accessible big city and mountain town combination in North America.

    Historically though, Salt Lake City hasn’t really been known for modern architecture. There is, of course, one glaring exception and that is the work of architect John Sugden.

    Sugden was originally from Chicago, had trained under Mies van der Rohe, and is credited with bringing a similar kind of International Style to Utah.

    The house pictured above is one of Sugden’s projects.

    I’m not sure when it was originally built, but it was meticulously renovated by Brent Jespersen, and featured in Dwell magazine back in 2009. If you’d like to take a closer look, click here. (It is again being renovated right now.)

    When I was researching who in Salt Lake City and Park City was building cool stuff, Brent’s name immediately came up. So I appreciate him taking the time to tour me through some of his projects this evening. Thank you, Brent.

    What is now clear to me is that this whole not being known for modern architecture thing is quickly going away.

  • 📷 Park City in August

  • Coolest boutique hotels in the world

    Today’s post is a question for all of you: What would you say are the coolest and most remarkable boutique hotels in the world right now?

    What is clear to me is that travel (and flexible work) will continue to be a growing market and that there is demand for a variety of different hospitality offerings.

    Sometimes people might want to stay in an Airbnb (which is usually a property owned by an individual or individuals).

    Sometimes people might want to stay in a branded and/or membership-based rental such as a Sonder or a Wander (which, in the case of Wander, is a collection of properties owned by the same company).

    And sometimes people might want to stay in a tried-and-true hotel.

    I think that all of these offerings serve different needs. And at the end of the day, I don’t believe that Airbnbs, or whatever permutation they take, will ever replace the best hotels. There are things you can get in a hotel that you can’t get elsewhere.

    So today I am hoping to crowdsource some of the best examples from all of you. Thanks in advance for any ideas you might send over.

  • Are you sure you want Parisian-style urbanism?

    This might seem like a fairly benign tweet by Clive Doucet, a former Ottawa City Councillor. I mean, Paris is wonderful. It is livable, walkable, and my favorite city in the world after Toronto. But as I have argued many times before on the blog, there is a tendency to look at Paris’ uniform mid-rise buildings and then incorrectly try and translate it over to a North American (or other) context with opinions that we should simply cap building heights. Because if only we were to do that, then we would be left with our own version of beautiful Paris.

    This is false. And you should immediately call bullshit on anyone who suggests this might be the case. It ignores most of what Napoleon III and Haussmann did to Paris in the 19th century, and instead just cherry picks height so that it can be exported back home to oppose tall buildings. If we really and truly want Paris, then it is important to be reminded that, among many other things, the Paris we all love today is the result of:

    • The annexation of eleven surrounding communities (in order to form the city’s current boundaries)
    • Mass urban renewal, involving the displacement of some 350,000 people (according to some estimates at the time)
    • Nearly two decades of large-scale disruptive construction
    • The demolition of hundreds of old dilapidated buildings (some of which may have even been in a Heritage Conservation District — bad planning joke)
    • The cutting through of nearly 80 kilometers of new avenues all across the city
    • The building of high-density courtyard buildings and blocks

    As you might suspect, Parisians at the time were upset with this kind of large-scale change. The now famous Impressionist painters lamented the new monotony of Paris’ regular mid-rise blocks. Where had the unique and quirky Paris of past gone? It was, of course, being systematically erased in the name of modernization and urban renewal, which by the way, included a new and important water and sanitation network. What Napoleon III and Haussmann did was transform Paris from a crumbling medieval city into a modern metropolis.

    I am not suggesting that any of this is bad and shouldn’t have happened. Today, Paris is deeply loved the world over. But what I am suggesting is that if we truly want to create our own version of Paris, then we are going to need to be realistic with ourselves on what it is going to take to get there. It will require nothing short of massive change.

    If we want Paris and Paris-like densities (despite what Clive posits in his tweet, Paris is not the densest city in the world), we are going to need to be fully prepared to rip up and rethink our entire approach to zoning. Taller buildings are partially (largely?) a result of our cultural obsession with single-family houses. We restrict supply, codify low-densities, and then wonder why the remaining areas need to be so tall. We then grasp at out-of-context examples in order to justify our own selfish interests.

    If Paris is really what we want, then we must be prepared for everything that comes along with its pretty mid-rise buildings. Are you ready?

    Photo by Nil Castellví on Unsplash