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.

Subscribe

  • From country club to urban basecamp

    CityLab recently published an article talking about the difficult time that golf-centric country clubs are having in attracting young people (and minorities and women). Their reasoning is that Millennials are saddled with student debt and can’t afford the fees; Millennials find these sorts of clubs stuffy and overly formal; and Millennials are put off by the long history of these places being only for rich white males.

    The result is that golf and country club memberships are down about 20% since 1990. In the 90s there were more than 5,000 full service clubs of this type in the US. And today it’s somewhere south of 4,000. In the 90s, about 9 million people aged 18 to 34 played golf (again in the US). And today that number is somewhere around 6.2 million. All stats taken from the article.

    But at the same time, the article argues that Millennials may still like country clubs, they’re just about 10 years behind because of higher education, travel, and delayed family formation. The article also talks about the rise of private clubs like Soho House, as well as others. And so here’s one counter argument: Millennials are open to private clubs and many have the means. They just want them to be, well, cooler and more urban.

    As a young person who largely fits within the trend line described in the CityLab article, my gut tells me that this is largely a case of changing consumer preferences and urbanizing wealth. That’s why we’re seeing established country club operators open up “urban basecamps.” But that’s my view. What is yours? Let us know in the comments below.

    Photo by Andrew Rice on Unsplash

  • The most expensive parking spot in the world

    I saw in the news recently that Hong Kong just set a new world record for the most expensive parking spot. I think it also held the previous record.

    Last month somebody paid HKD 6 million for a single stall in the Ultima apartment complex in Kowloon. That’s about USD 765,000 or CAD 1 million based on today’s rates. And the spot is 16.4 feet x 8.2 feet, so that works out to about CAD 7,436 per square foot. 

    What is clear is that supply is not keeping up with demand. Here is the stat from a recent Toronto Star article:

    The number of parking spaces grew just 9.5 per cent to 743,000 from 2006 through 2016 [in Hong Kong], while the private car population surged 49 per cent to 536,025, according to a report by the city’s Transport Department.

    There are a number market forces which are undoubtedly bringing down the ratio of parking stalls to housing units. That same phenomenon is also pretty clear here in Toronto. But it is interesting to note the continued growth in private cars.

  • How large metro areas are driving the global economy

    “The concentration of economic growth and prosperity in large metro areas defines the modern global economy, creating both opportunities and challenges in an era in which national political, economic, and societal trends are increasingly influenced by subnational dynamics.” -Brookings Institute

    The Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institute has a new report out for 2018 called the Global Metro Monitor.

    Here are some of the highlights (data is from 2014 to 2016):

    – The 300 largest metro areas in the world accounted for 36% of employment growth and 67% of GDP growth.

    – Metro areas in China and the Asia-Pacific region outperformed, whereas Latin American cities, and in particular the largest Brazilian cities, were weaker performers.

    – The majority of large metro areas had growth rates that exceeded that of their respective regions. So again, cities are the driver.

    And here is an interesting interactive chart (better to click through) that shows the % change in GDP per capita. 

    image

    Look at how much of an outlier San Jose is. Though, check out Dublin in the footnote. And if you look at the actual data table, it is all China, except for Dublin at the top.

    image

    For the rest of the charts, click here. And to download the full Global Metro Monitor report, click here.

  • Hypervacancy in America’s legacy cities

    I was reading Aaron Renn’s post this morning on America’s vacant housing challenge and I was reminded of the stark contrast between what we are experiencing here in Toronto and what the US is experiencing in a lot of its coastal cities, compared to what is happening in many legacy cities in the US. The former industrial centers. In this latter case, the discussion is around neighborhoods reaching a tipping point in terms of vacant homes and then spiralling out of control. Below is an excerpt from a study that Renn cites in his post. It is from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and it’s called “The Empty House Next Door.” The above chart should also tell you a lot about the magnitude of this problem.

    Hypervacancy has been rising steadily in legacy cities since the 1990s. Although only one out of sixteen census tracts in Cleveland was hypervacant in 1990, by 2010, one out of two tracts in that city had reached hypervacancy. When vacancies rise above approximately 20 percent of an area’s total properties, the number of vacant buildings and lots may continue to grow indefinitely. Although vacancies rarely reach 100 percent—because even the most distressed neighbor- hood may have a few long-term owners—the market effectively ceases to function. Houses sell, if they sell at all, only to investors at rock bottom prices while the neighborhoods become areas of concentrated poverty, unemployment, and health problems.

  • More on One Delisle and the block

    image

    Now that things have quieted down from last night, I would like to say that we are thrilled by the response to One Delisle and the broader ideas for the block. There was a lot of positivity last night at the open house and today the project team received countless emails and messages from people telling us that they are excited and/or looking forward to working with us over the coming years. Many were from the local community.

    image

    Following yesterday’s Globe and Mail piece by Alex Bozikovic, One Delisle was also covered in Urban Toronto (read the comments), designboom (they’re allergic to capital letters), ArchDaily, Canadian Architect, Dezeen, The Architect’s Newspaper, and probably other places that I am missing. The comments have been interesting to read and there seems to be a fatigue around boring glass boxes. This project team does not want to do that.

    Though the project has been making the rounds, there are two images that I don’t think have been widely shared and so I would like to do that today (below). Both were presented at last night’s open house. And they are intended to show the relationship between One Delisle and Delisle Park, which is proposed to be revitalized and expanded by ~50% as part of the project’s block and enhanced public realm strategy. Credit to ADHOC Studio for these renderings.

    imageimage

    In fact, it is important to keep in mind that while a lot of attention is being paid to the architecture of the building, there’s a broader city building strategy that is attached and integral to it:

    • Revitalize and expand Delisle Park by 50%
    • Add residential uses to a block of office buildings
    • Reduce the number of vehicular access points across the block from 5 to 3 in order to improve traffic flows in the area
    • Create below-grade vehicular connections across the block to consolidate and legitimize access/loading and once again improve traffic flows in the area 
    • Significantly widen the sidewalk along Yonge Street to eliminate existing pedestrian pinch point
    • Significantly widen the sidewalk along Delisle Avenue to strengthen connection to Delisle Park
    • Introduce pedestrian laneway with art canopy to connect St. Clair Avenue West back to Delisle Park
    • Create a unified and consistent public realm across the block and provide retail animation along its edges
    • Retain Art Deco facade along Yonge Street
    • Target the 2nd tier of the Toronto Green Standard (voluntary sustainability target)
    • Continue to explore the feasibility of district energy solutions across the block to take advantage of the different energy demand curves for office, retail, and residential uses

    Once again, a big thanks to the ~300 people who came out last night – in the rain – to engage with the project team. And a big thanks to the full project team who worked tirelessly to prepare for this week’s community open house. But as was said on Thursday night, in many ways this is really just the beginning. To stay informed about the project and to provide your feedback to the team, stay tuned to yongedelisle.ca.

    Photos: Khristel Studios

  • Studio Gang’s first project in Canada

    imageimage

    This evening Slate Asset Management hosted the community meeting that I’ve been writing about on the blog over the last little while. 

    And at this open house Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang introduced a new block plan and mixed-use building at the southwest corner of Yonge Street and Delisle Avenue in midtown Toronto.

    I think it went really well. We had over 200 people RSVP, but based on my imprecise head count, over 300 people actually showed up. 

    I would tell you more right now, but it’s very late. So I’m going to instead leave you with this article by Alex Bozikovic, titled, Studio Gang’s new Toronto tower follows the right recipe: tall, innovative and excellent.

  • Letter from Toronto on Google’s city of the future

    Politico Magazine recently published this article about Sidewalk Toronto. It’s called: Google Is Building a City of the Future in Toronto. Would Anyone Want to Live There? 

    If you’re familiar with what Sidewalk Toronto is up to, the first bit will likely cover things you already know. But later on it gets into an interesting discussion around data privacy, among other things.

    One argument is that if you strip any personal identifiers from the data you collect, then you’ve effectively eliminated the issue of privacy. 

    But what about “collective privacy?” 

    What if you could, for example, identity signs of concentrated drug usage within certain districts, communities, or even buildings? Does that start to get a little too personal?

    This is the great debate surrounding Quayside, the area that Sidewalk is focused on. The article also touches on what Quayside could mean for the future of Toronto.

    Just about all players involved believe that if Sidewalk can be successful at Quayside, it has a shot at the adjoining 800-acre Port Lands, a swath of problem space big enough to become home to a dozen new neighborhoods in a growing metropolis. Townsend, the consultant, says of the Port Lands: “That’s a city they’re going to build there. This is just the warmup, this little piece.”

    Full article, here. There’s also an audio version in case that’s your preferred consumption method. It’s about 40 minutes long if you do it that way (and don’t speed it up).

  • Architecture’s great injustice

    This morning Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang published an op-ed in Fast Company detailing how her architecture and urban design practice closed the gender wage gap. 

    It is also a call to action and an example of something the firm calls “actionable idealism.” Here is an excerpt from the article:

    What we discovered was that, despite our ideological commitment to equality (and though our numbers were significantly better than all the U.K. architecture firms reporting, in all categories), a small pay gap nevertheless existed between the women and men in my office. We fixed that with this year’s raises and now have no wage gap as an organization.

    To learn more about how they accomplished this, check out the full article. And if you’d like to meet Jeanne Gang in Toronto this week and learn more about what we’re up to at Yonge + St. Clair, click here.

  • Below the surface

    Later this month the new 9.7 km North-South metro line in Amsterdam will start service. Like most large scale infrastructure projects, its opening has been delayed many times. 8 times according to this source. But this post is not about that. It’s about a byproduct of the line’s construction. 

    The excavations required for the line meant that two sections of the Amstel River – namely the Damrak and Rokin sites – had to be drained. This took place from 2003 to 2012 and gave archaeologists unprecedented access to the bottom of a river in the middle of a historic city center.

    Amsterdam started as a small trading port along the banks of the Amstel River some 800 years ago. So not surprisingly, they found a few things. Over 17,000 objects were found and all of them have been catalogued online according to time period, use, material, and location found.

    For the full catalogue of objects, click here. Screenshot of the catalogue shown above. And to learn more about the entire project, start here. There’s a lot of good stuff in there for city nerds.

  • Canada Day and Moving Day

    Happy Canada Day to the Canadian readers of this blog. Here is a picture that I took of the CN Tower a few weeks ago just after sunset from Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport (YTZ). It also symbolizes Canada for me. 80mm f/1.2 in case you’re wondering.

    In some parts of this country, July 1st has another, perhaps more laborious, significance: It is “moving day.” In 18th century Quebec it was forbidden for les seigneurs to evict farming tenants during the winter, a law that was simply inherited from France at the time.

    As time went on, this evolved into a law – baked into the Civil Code of Lower Canada (1866) – requiring that all residential leases run from May 1 to April 30. May 1 was “moving day.”

    In 1973, it was determined that May 1 was too disruptive to children in school and so an extension was granted on all leases, automatically pushing the date to July 1. It also meant moving in the summer, as opposed to in the spring when weather can be unpredictable in Quebec.

    The requirement of fixed lease terms was also removed at this time (1974 onward), but tradition has persisted and July 1 remains known as “moving day.” This seems to me like a logistical nightmare and a highly impractical way of allocating resources, but perhaps I’m just missing some of the nuances.

    In any event, whether you’re sitting on a dock reading the Canadian Constitution Act of 1867 with a Brickworks cider, moving all of your belongings (in what is a hot weekend), or doing something completely different, I hope you’re having a good one. Happy Canada Day.