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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  • What I’m doing next

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    A number of you have asked if I’m moving to New York. I can see why that was inferred from some of my posts, but that was actually not my intention. I am not moving to New York. (Sorry New York friends. I’ll visit soon.)

    Toronto is home base. I hope it’s clear how much I love this city. Sure, I’m a big fan of New York and Miami and Vancouver and Berlin and Tokyo and Jackson (to name some of the places I have on my phone’s weather app), but I made a deliberate choice to station myself here.

    Because unlike some of the other industries I write about on this blog, city building is hyper local. What I do involves the built environment. And that doesn’t generally happen via a laptop on a beach in Bali (at least not for extended periods of time).

    It happens by being on the ground, interfacing with local communities, meeting face-to-face with the city, and poring over drawings with smart people who know far more about their respective disciplines than I ever will. It is a collaborative and local effort. It’s about getting into the details.

    And so to be successful in this business, I think it helps to find a home and take long bets. I’m not saying that I will never work on projects in other cities (I have and I would), but I am saying that I’m not moving to New York right now and that home remains Toronto.

    On that note, here’s what I have to tell you. Later this year I’ll be joining Slate Asset Management as VP of Development.

    A bit about Slate:

    Slate is one of the most active acquirers, owners, and managers of real estate in Canada right now. Founded in 2005 by two brothers (Blair and Brady), Slate has over $3 billion of assets under management across over 16 million square feet and over 130 properties.

    All of this is done through four main investment vehicles: 

    1) The first is Slate Advisors. It acts on behalf of and alongside private institutional investors — such as Greystone.

    2) The second is Slate Office REIT (TSE:SOT.UN). It is a pure play Canadian office REIT focused on downtown and suburban properties all across the country.

    3) The third is Slate Retail REIT (TSX:SRT.U). It is a pure play REIT entirely focused on grocery-anchored U.S. retail properties. (Remember how many times I’ve written on this blog about how grocery has one of the lowest online shopping penetrations?)

    4) And the fourth: Slate is also starting a grocery-anchored retail platform in Germany. It is similar to #3, except that it’s in Germany.

    Most recently, Slate has been in the news because of the position it has taken at Yonge + St Clair in midtown Toronto — a perfect example of “finding a home and taking long bets.” Slate, in partnership with Greystone, owns all 4 corners of the intersection and about 60% of the properties along the St. Clair corridor.

    Here’s a diagram of those Slate buildings:

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    In case you didn’t put two and two together, the 8-storey mural I wrote about two weeks ago is going up (right now) on the side of a Slate building (1 St Clair Avenue West — shown above). The British street artist known as Phlegm is doing it.

    Up until today, the focus of Slate has largely been on acquiring undervalued / overlooked real estate and creating value through re-leasing and overall repositioning. That will certainly continue. But given what I do, I am sure you can posit what’s also next.

    I’m genuinely excited to be joining such a talented group of real estate professionals. As I mentioned last week, I wasn’t in the market for anything new. I was heads down working on cool projects. But life happens. And Slate quickly demonstrated to me that the incredible success they have seen to date is precisely because of how progressive, nimble, and entrepreneurial they are.

    On that note, I have “one more thing” to share today.

    In parallel to all of this, and with the support of Slate, I am also starting a boutique city building company called Globizen. The name is derived from Global + Citizen.

    The objective is to build a company that embodies everything I write about on this blog. I want it to be lifestyle and design-driven. I want it to leverage technology to improve the way that cities and the building industry operate. And I want it to function as a vertically integrated real state + design firm, focused on sustainable urban infill development. Think of it as city building by and for the responsible global citizen.

    It’s still early days, but the thinking is that this new platform could compliment the larger Slate platform in some way. It’s too early to say how exactly, but everyone is open to having those discussions. And that’s what matters at this stage.

    I am going to end with a quote. It’s by Partner and Co-Founder, Blair Welch:

    “On all of our deals we have had people say ‘can’t’ to us. They say ‘Can’t be done, can’t do that, can’t raise money, etcetera.’ At Slate, we don’t do ‘can’t’ well.”

    I like that a lot. So here’s to finding a home, taking long bets, and not saying can’t. Onward my friends. 

  • Urban pet peeve: copycatting

    One of my biggest pet peeves is when cities copy things from other cities. 

    Let me give you an example. Whenever I see one of those red double decker tourist buses roaming around Toronto, I always look to see if it’s the type that has London signage and destinations plastered all over it. And when it is, I cringe. (I saw one earlier today.)

    Why would anyone design a tourist bus that makes you feel like you’re half in another city? I don’t get it. The whole reason people are getting on that bus is because they’ve come to visit this city. It should make you feel like you’re here and nowhere else. It should feel locally authentic.

    To be clear, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be learning from other cities and building on top of other’s great ideas. That’s precisely what we should all be doing. I’m talking about kitschy copies with little additional thought put into them. And I can think of many examples beyond just tourist buses.

    Am I just being pedantic?

    What about you? Any urban pet peeves?

  • If man had developed a third arm, where might this arm be best attached?

    Roman Mars of 99% Invisible recently published an excellent episode called The Mind of an Architect. It has to do with a set of research studies completed in the late 1950s by an organization at the University of California, Berkeley known as the Institute of Personality Assessment and Research (IPAR).

    IPAR was founded by a personality psychologist named Donald MacKinnon. He initially worked for the precursor to the CIA and founded IPAR with the intent of studying “combat readiness and efficiency.” But over fears of how creative the Soviets were getting, the focus of IPAR shifted to instead studying creativity.

    And architects were deemed to be an ideal test subject (from 99percentinvisible.org):

    “Researchers saw architects as people working at a crossroads of creative disciplines, a combination of analytic and artistic creativity. As professionals, architects had to be savvy as engineers and businessmen; as aesthetes, they also acted as designers and artists.”

    So over a series of weekends in the late 1950s, some of the most celebrated minds in architecture – including people like Philip Johnson, Richard Neutra, and Louis Kahn – were studied and picked apart. 

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    They were asked to do quick sketches, create mosaics, and they were asked questions such as this one: “For the next 45 minutes we would like you to discuss this notion: if man had developed a third arm, where might this arm be best attached?”

    In the end, here’s what they concluded:

    The researchers began to notice certain patterns across creatives of all professions and genders, including a tendency to nonconformity and high personal aspirations. They also found many creatives shared a preference for complexity and ambiguity over simplicity and order. Creatives could make unexpected connections and see patterns in daily life, even those lacking high intelligence or good grades.

    In short: IPAR found that creative people tend to be nonconforming, interesting, interested, independent, courageous and self-centered, at least in general. Many of these traits may seem obvious today, but they were not necessarily obvious prior to these studies. Back when their tests were being conducted and findings presented in the 1950s and ’60s, the very idea of a “creative personality” was a novelty in academic and public discourse.

    The findings may not be groundbreaking to us today, but the documents and recordings produced during the study are certainly interesting. If you’re into this topic, there’s also this book you can pick up.

    Oh, and if we are to have a third arm, I would like mine to run almost parallel to my existing dominant arm (right). That way I could double up on my most potent dexterity. It would also be far less intrusive than an arm on one’s head or in the middle of one’s back. Then again, it would ruin our symmetry as humans. And perhaps that third arms need to be celebrated instead of being masked.

    What would you suggest?

    Image: Institute of Personality and Social Research, University of California, Berkeley / The Monacelli Press (via 99% Invisible)

  • How sexy is your city?

    I recently penned an article for Building Magazine called How Sexy Is Your City? The subtitle is: The next generation of talent will require cities to take a next generation approach to city building.

    I know that we’re all hitting our limit in terms of people talking about millennials, so I’d like to reassure you that – excluding the actual article tag – the word “millennial” only shows up twice in the piece. 

    I also don’t write long-form articles very often. I’ve had people suggest that I do that periodically on this blog, but I find the time commitment to be exponentially greater than for the short, glib pieces I usually write here. 😉

    So if you can bear two more instances of the word “millennial” and you’ve been looking for something longer, you are in luck. Also, if you’d like to subscribe to Building, you can do that here.

    Image: Doublespace Photography via Building

  • Rinse and repeat

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    Venture capitalist Matt Turck has a post up on his blog that is packed full of information about the New York City tech ecosystem. (He has also written similar posts about Berlin and Paris.)

    His overall thesis is that New York – as a startup/tech hub – is only now starting to catch up to the hype of 4 or 5 years ago. He now refers to NYC as the de facto Number 2 after the Bay Area.

    If you’re interested in all of this, you can go read his full post. But I would like to pull out 2 points. The first is about the “rinse and repeat” cycle that happens over time that allows cities to become substantive startup hubs:

    As any student of emerging tech ecosystems knows, the key dynamic to success is the “rinse and repeat” cycle. You need several waves of successful tech companies to go through the whole cycle of founding, financing, scaling and significant exit.   Post-exit, the hope is that successful founders, employees and investors then contribute back both money and expertise to the next generation of tech startups, a few of which eventually become highly successful themselves and then provide money and expertise to the following generation.

    The trouble is, each successive cycle takes years, because the average successful startup takes 5 to 10 years to get to a large exit.

    One key reason the Silicon Valley has become such a powerful network is that this “rinse and repeat” cycle has been happening there for decades, at least since the 1940s and 1950s (Hewlett Packard), with a real acceleration in the 1970s and 1980s (Apple IPO, founding of Kleiner Perkins, etc).

    I’ve written about this idea before, but didn’t refer to it as “rinse and repeat.” I’m thinking about adopting that terminology going forward.

    The second is a list of New York-based startups. Matt uses it as an example of how entrepreneurial activity in New York is operating across a broad cross-section of different industries. That’s an important characteristic to identify.

    However, I also thought you might find it valuable to see what startups are out there, particularly if you happen to work in one of the below verticals/horizontals. I certainly went right to the real estate line.

    Fintech: Betterment, IEX, Fundera, Bond, Orchard, Bread
    Health: Oscar, Flatiron Health, ZocDoc, Hometeam, Recombine, Celmatix, BioDigital, ZipDrug
    Education: General Assembly, Schoology, Knewton, Skillshare, Flatiron School, Codecademy
    Real estate: WeWork, HighTower, VTS, Compass, Common, Reonomy
    Enterprise SaaS: InVision, NewsCred, Sprinklr, Namely, JustWorks, Greenhouse, Percolate, Mark43, Movable Ink
    Commerce infrastructure: Bluecore, Custora, Welcome Commerce
    Marketplaces: Kickstarter, Vroom, 1stdibs
    On Demand: Handy, Via, Managed by Q, Hello Alfred
    Food: Blue Apron, Plated, Maple
    IoT/Hardware: littleBits, Canary, Peloton, Shapeways, SOLS, Estimote, Dash, GoTenna, Raden, Ringly, Augury, Drone Racing League
    AR/VR/3D: Sketchfab, Floored

    I was happy to see my friends at Floored in the above list. They are under AR/VR/3D, but they service the real estate industry.

  • Two open real estate development positions

    I recently alluded to some life changes on this blog. Well, I am now ready to share: I am leaving my development position at CAPREIT.

    I wasn’t intending to leave. I wasn’t looking to leave. And frankly, I felt conflicted. But sometimes life has a funny way of presenting opportunities that you just have to say yes to. As my mother likes to tell me: “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” More on this in a later post. Stay tuned.

    What I would like to talk about today are the opportunities that this may create for some of you. There are now two open development positions at CAPREIT. Both positions would be based in downtown Toronto (St. Lawrence Market).

    The first opportunity is essentially a Director level role where you would be responsible for growing the development team at CAPREIT. You should be able to lead a team, identify new development opportunities, create pro formas, assemble/manage consultant teams, secure development approvals for complex urban infill sites, and generally lead projects and people through the entire development lifecycle. For more information and to apply, click here.

    The second opportunity is at the Coordinator level. You would be reporting day-to-day to the above person and you should have working knowledge of the development process. For more information and to apply, click here.

    I would just like to add that in both cases you would be working on some very exciting urban infill projects and you would be joining an organization with great people and a great corporate culture. I mean this sincerely. If you have any questions about the two roles, feel free to reach out to me directly. And if you’re in the market, consider applying.

  • View From A Blue Moon

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    I don’t surf. I would like to learn, but I haven’t yet done that. I snowboard. That’s my thing. It’s what I look forward to doing every single winter. 

    But even as a non-surfer, I can’t begin to tell you how much I enjoyed the movie View From A Blue Moon. A friend told me about it last weekend and I immediately rented it on my Apple TV. (That’s the only thing I have to watch things.)

    It’s a movie about John Florence, who is arguably the world’s best surfer right now. He’s from Hawaii. But in addition to John’s incredible surfing abilities, it’s the cinematography and soundtrack that make this movie so special. 

    As soon as the movie ended, I immediately went on Soundcloud to find all of the songs. Quentin Tarantino once said that when you pick the right song for a particular scene/movie, you can then never listen to that song ever again without thinking of the movie. That’s how I now feel about this song.

    Here’s the trailer (apparently it’s the first surf movie filmed entirely in 4K):

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTqVqk7FSmY?rel=0]

    If you’re at all interested, I highly recommend you give it a watch. There are also some great urban shots for all of the city geeks who read this blog. Let me know what you think if you end up watching it or if you’ve already seen it.

    Image: View From A Blue Moon

  • White and minimal

    The Douglas House by architect Richard Meier was just designated by the National Register of Historic Places. The house was originally designed in the late 1960s for Jean and Jim Douglas of Grand Rapids, Michigan. But it was more recently restored by Marcia Myers and Michael McCarthy. They purchased the tired property in 2007 and apparently had architecture professors knocking on their door shortly thereafter.

    Here is a beautiful photo (via Curbed) by James Haefner courtesy of the Michigan State Historic Preservation Office:

    I love the positioning of the house within the landscape. In fact, it’s built into such a steep slope that you actually enter the house at roof level via a bridge. However, once inside, you’re then able to look down to the living and dining areas, as well as out to the sundeck overlooking Lake Michigan.

    Interestingly enough (according to designboom), the Douglas family had originally purchased a lot for their new home in a residential subdivision. But when the developer of the subdivision prohibited them from working with a stark Modernist like Richard Meier (those damn developers), they decided to sell the lot and look for something else. Above is what they ultimately decided on.

    I’m glad they stuck to their guns. Otherwise this house probably wouldn’t exist today. And that would be a shame. I’ve always liked the work of Richard Meier. It’s always white and minimal and I like white and minimal. Simplicity can be surprisingly difficult to achieve. As the saying goes: “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.”

  • We’re eliminating parking minimums

    I’ve been writing about the hypocrisy of parking minimums for years now. Some posts here, here, and here. 

    To me, it doesn’t make sense to try and promote more sustainable forms of urban mobility while at the same time mandating a minimum number of parking stalls in every new development. 

    Do you want people driving or not driving? Pick one.

    That’s why I was happy to see the following action item in the province of Ontario’s five year plan to transition to a low-carbon economy and fight climate change (thank you Ken Wilcox for bringing it to my attention):

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    I haven’t gone through the entire action plan and so this post is not a commentary on that. It is, however, a commentary on subsection 1.4. I believe it is the right thing to do and I’m stoked to see it in the plan.

  • Real estate company? No, a lifestyle brand.

    This past weekend a rooftop restaurant, pool, and entertainment venue called LAVELLE opened upon atop 629 King Street West here in Toronto. It’s on the rooftop of a condo by Freed Developments, that for some reason is no longer called the Thompson Residences.

    Here’s a sampling of their Instagram to paint you a picture:

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    I mention this not because I went, but because I think it’s interesting to see how Peter Freed is evolving his company and brand. He is best known as a real estate developer. But what he wants to do and what he is doing is turning Freed Developments into a “vertically and horizontally integrated progressive lifestyle company.”

    According to this recent press release, LAVELLE is the first venture of Trademark Hospitality Inc., which itself is “a branch of Freed Hospitality.” This is him selling not just selling a place to live, but selling a particular lifestyle and a certain community – and then taking an active and ongoing role in the programming of it.

    The other example that comes to mind is that of Equinox Fitness. I’m sure you all know this company, but what you may not know is that it’s owned by a real estate development firm called Related. The New York-based company acquired them in 2005 (closed in 2006) for about half a billion dollars. 

    Here’s why they did it (excerpt from this press release):

    Related and Equinox have historically shared similar visions. Both companies are known for their commitment to lifestyle, service, innovation and design, and have a passionate following amongst dedicated upscale consumers. The companies’ respective customers have similar demographic and psychographic profiles and both foster fiercely loyal clientele who are passionate about their brands.

    Related has redefined the residential marketplace, created the benchmark for sophisticated urban living and has been committed to quality fitness facilities in its buildings since the mid-eighties. Since its inception 15 years ago, Equinox has been widely recognized for being an industry innovator and for delivering an unparalleled fitness experience.

    Both companies will enjoy a number of key strategic opportunities from the partnership. Related will secure a well known brand as a quality anchor tenant for key current and future developments. This will also help Related to enhance the quality of its amenities and facilities available to residents.

    So this is not a new thing. In both of these cases, the goal is to create a brand and identity centered around a precise lifestyle. I mean, Related even mentions “psychographic profiles” in their news release. They know who their audience is, just as Freed does.

    Another way of looking at this is how it ties into what I see as a broader shift away from just development to more city building. It’s not just about throwing up a building and then moving on. It’s about trying to foster a certain kind of community and lifestyle. We may not all agree on what that community should be, but overall I think it’s an exciting direction for cities.

    If you’re taking a similar approach in your business (or even if you’re not), I would love to hear from you in the comments below.