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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  • Should I stay or should I go?

    I’m listening to The Foreign Desk this morning while I have my coffee. Steve Bloomfield is interviewing two different politicians: one who believes Britain should remain in the EU and one who believes Britain should leave the EU. 

    (Each interview is about 15 minutes short.)

    The back and forth is largely centered around two things: the economy and immigration. Will the British economy be better off in or out of the EU? And on the immigration front, will “in” translate into millions of Turks flooding into Britain should Turkey join the EU?

    For those of you who haven’t been following, Britain will be holding a referendum on June 23rd (2016) to decide whether they stay or go.

    My general view is that a strong economy should trump concerns over foreigners. But I don’t feel as if I know enough about this precise topic to take a firm position.

    Regardless, I very much enjoyed The Foreign Desk episode this morning and I would be open to discussing this issue in the comments below if any of you are also interested.

  • Young, educated, and urban

    The Wall Street Journal recently published this article talking about how the young and educated are flocking to high-density urban areas all across the United States. Here’s a set of charts from the article:

    There are many people who will point out – probably rightly – that despite the “return to cities” that we are currently seeing, the world is still suburbanizing. But, it doesn’t appear to be suburbanizing in quite the same way as it did for prior generations. There’s also a socioeconomic shift taking place.

    As an example, and to drive home the point that it’s not just the expensive coastal cities that are seeing rising home prices, the WSJ article focuses quite a bit on Ohio City – a neighborhood in Cleveland. Here’s what has been happening:

    In the Ohio City neighborhood, the median income skyrocketed to $93,000 from $23,000 since 2006, according to Ohio City Inc., a local nonprofit development group. Median home values shot up 800% since 2000 to $270,000, according to Ohio City Inc. Median rental prices in downtown Cleveland as a whole jumped 47% from late 2010 to late 2015, according to the Center for Population Dynamics at Cleveland State University.

    These are pretty dramatic increases – though $270,000 feels cheap to someone from Toronto. Still, it speaks to a trend. You and I both know that Ohio City isn’t the only neighborhood seeing those sorts of numbers.

  • Fluted glass curtain wall

    New York architecture firm REX is working on a new office building in Washington DC that will incorporate a beautiful fluted glass facade. Here’s a rendering of what it is intended to look like:

    Here’s what that looks like in plan (it’s a GIF that should show typical curtain wall vs. proposed fluted glass):

    Here’s a photo of the 1:1 mockup:

    And here’s a description from the architect:

    The façade’s approximately nine hundred identical, insulated-glass panels—3.2 m tall by 1.5 m wide (11’-6” tall by 5’-0” wide)—are subtly curved to a 2.9 m (9’-6”) radius through a heat roller tempering process. The curve yields structural efficiency, which meets wind load requirements and enables a thinner monolithic outer lite than normal, providing greater transparency. 

    Because of the curve’s inherent rigidity in compression, only the top and bottom edges of the panels are supported from the floor slabs, while the mullionless vertical edges are flush-glazed for a minimalist aesthetic that improves sight lines, while gaining usable floor area.

    They are working in collaboration with Front Inc., which if you haven’t heard of, you should check out. They are a design/engineering consultancy that specializes in facades and building envelopes. They work with many of the big name starchitects. The developer of the project is Tishman Speyer.

    It’s worth noting that part of the impetus for the fluted glass facade was to try and innovate within the confines of DC’s draconian zoning – which mandates that no building can be taller than 130 feet. Because of this, developers and architects are usually forced to build out to the allowable area, leaving little room for architectural variation. 

    But in this case, the fluted glass removed the need for thick mullions and also allowed them to extend out beyond the lot area by 4 inches every 5 feet (the curves are considered “architectural features”). So this move has created both architectural variation and more rentable area.

    It doesn’t appear that the building will have any operable windows, but other than that, I think it promises to be quite beautiful. What do you think?

    All images from REX.

  • The change order (ruminations on innovation)

    If any of you are in the
    business of creating – whether that’s a mobile app or a building – I’m sure
    you understand that the product or thing you’re working on will naturally
    evolve and change over time – probably in unexpected ways.

    In fact, I usually take this as a positive sign. When I have my
    head in a project and I’m focused on solving problems, ideas will naturally
    start to flow. I start thinking of things that I never would have thought
    about at the outset. That’s why I generally think of creativity as a process,
    rather than as some divine gift.

    But the challenge with all of this is that many of our existing business
    processes are not set up to deal with this kind of ambiguity. If anything we
    try and punish these sorts of deviations. If it wasn’t pre-meditated at the
    beginning of the project, we call it “scope creep” and charge extra for them as
    “change orders.” These two words equal death in construction.

    Now, don’t get me wrong, I completely understand the realities
    of running a business and the importance of managing scope and resources. It’s
    a balancing act. Without some structure, nothing would get done. 

    But the more that iterative
    lean methodologies and “design thinking” can be embedded into our processes,
    the more value creation I believe we will see.

    My thinking is as follows: At
    least part of the reason that innovation comes from startups and new market
    entrants is that the founders aren’t usually sitting around talking about defined
    scope and laying out elaborate business plans. They’re focused on creatively
    solving problems and doing whatever it takes to get there.

    It’s also one of the reasons
    that conventional wisdom dictates that tech startups shouldn’t outsource development.
    It’s too core a competency and you can’t “move
    fast and break things    ” if you don’t have that in-house and you’re constantly worried
    about eye-popping invoices hitting your desk.

    I have always seen lots of
    parallels between startups and architecture. In both of these worlds, the idea
    you start with is rarely what you end up with (at least that’s the case in
    architecture school). You research, learn, and iterate along the way and that
    leads you in new and unexpected ways.

    And in my view, that’s often what
    the path to innovation looks like. Because if you define the entire path at the
    outset, how can you expect to go anywhere new? And if you’re not going anywhere
    new, how can you expect to outperform the market?

  • A money back guarantee on your next home

    image

    I’ve written about Opendoor.com a few times. As far as I can tell, they are the furthest ahead in terms of disrupting the residential real estate market. So I like to follow them quite closely.

    They’ve recently launched some new features, so I figured it would be a good time to check-in on what they’re up to. But first – for those of you might not be familiar with Opendoor – here’s what they do.

    Opendoor offers instant liquidity to homeowners by buying homes site unseen. The fee they charge seems to amount to less than 10% of the value of the home. 

    They also say that they typically offer prices that are about 1-3% less than the market value of the home 3 months into the future. (Apparently 3 months is the average time-on-market for the cities in which they operate.)

    Once they’ve bought the home, they then make improvements and put it back on the market. As of today, they are buying about 10 homes a day in the two markets in which they operate (Phoenix and Dallas). They are spending about $75 million a month buying homes.

    To mitigate their risk, they won’t buy a home built before 1960, a home that was pre-fabricated, a home with a solar lease, and so on. They also stick to values that are between $100,000 to $600,000. But apparently this covers off about 90% of homes in the United States. (You can read their full FAQ here.)

    To accomplish all of this, they have raised about $110 million in venture capital.

    What’s fascinating about all of this is that they are starting to create a seamless marketplace. As they continue to buy more homes (and aggregate supply), more buyers are starting to come to their marketplace. They also allow people to easily find local contractors.

    Over time as they gain scale and as their algorithms improve, one could imagine their pricing becoming more competitive, them taking more of the market, and them bearing much less market risk as homes quickly trade. 

    They liken their model to car trade-ins. Apparently 60% of people who buy a new car are trading in an old one. That’s an interesting comparison that I hadn’t thought about before.

    So what’s new?

    Two things…

    First, they are offering a 30 day full refund on new home purchases. In other words, if you buy a home through their platform and, for whatever reason, you end up not liking it, they’ll buy it back (minus some transaction costs and so on).

    Second, they are providing a 180-point inspection report to buyers and if anything breaks in the first two years of ownership (presumably it is something that contravenes the inspection), they’ll come and fix it.

    These additions are helpful because it starts to target buyers, which will help them fill out the other side of their marketplace. It also promotes greater transparency because now they’re partially on the hook for the home’s performance.

    I like what they are doing and, again, I can’t think of any other company making such big bets in this space.

  • Design, technology, and culture

    Every now and then I’ll come across a website, a product, or something that immediately resonates with me. Usually that means I’ll immediately subscribe to it, buy it, follow it, or do whatever the action is supposed to be. It doesn’t happen all that often – though I think it should be a goal of companies and organizations to delight – but that’s exactly what happened to me this morning when I stumbled upon Subtraction.com.

    Subtraction is a blog about design, technology and culture (all things I love) and it’s written by Khoi Vinh. Khoi is Principal Designer at Adobe. Prior to this, he was Design Director of The New York Times and co-founder of the design studio Behavior, LLC. Fast Company also named him one of the 50 most influential designers in America. But enough of all that. His blog is great.

    Whenever I write about blogging, I tend to get questions about other blogs I might recommend. So today I’m recommending Subtraction.com. I’ve also added it to my working reading list, which I don’t think many of you are aware of because you probably just read this blog in your inbox. But it exists and I’m happy to add to it if you have interesting suggestions. (Please leave a comment below.)

    P.S. Because of Subtraction, I now have the movie High-Rise on my watch list. Have any of you seen it? Because I don’t have cable or Netflix, I tend to be painfully out of the loop on these sorts of things. It’s based on a book by J.G. Ballard and it’s the story of a 1970s suburban London apartment building that starts to socially degrade. How could I not want to watch that?

  • Rental apartment expansion in Detroit

    The Detroit Free Press recently published a summary of some of the new rental apartments coming online in and around downtown Detroit. Here’s the map that they published along with their piece:

    image

    Based on this article, demand is outstripping new supply and rents are starting to push above $2 per square foot. This strikes me as a solid number given that there are also for sale lots/houses in the city going for $10,000.

    Going back to some of the posts I have written about rental apartment development in Toronto, you might remember that $3 psf is roughly our magic number given current cost structures.

    In some special circumstances you might be able to get a project off the ground with rents closer to $2 psf, but that’s an exception to the rule. There are many areas in the Toronto region with $2 psf rents and few, if any, new rental apartments.

    But Detroit is obviously a different city, as is every real estate market.

    Land would be cheaper. Many of these new rental apartments are conversions of existing buildings (which were probably bought for cents on the dollar). And I wouldn’t be surprised if there are tax abatements and other incentives to encourage more development. 

    I also wonder if people in the city aren’t being at least partially drawn to multi-family buildings because of the safety and security benefits. That’s something that certainly came up when I was in Detroit last weekend.

    Regardless, this is a good news story for Detroit, which is not always the story you hear people telling of the city.

  • 133 Wai Yip Street, Hong Kong

    Dutch architecture firm MVRDV recently converted an old industrial building in Hong Kong into new office space. The overall project size is roughly 200,000 sf. What’s unique about the project is the obsessive focus on transparency and glass.

    Here’s what the interior looks like:

    And here’s how the architect has described the project:

    “We are moving into a transparent society, businesses are becoming more open with the public, and people care more about what goes on behind closed doors. In that way, a clear workspace leaves nothing questionable, nothing hidden; it generates trust.” Tells MVRDV co-founder Winy Maas, “But also it is an opportunity for the building to become a reminder of the industrial history of the neighbourhood, monumentalised in a casing of glass.”

    I have written quite a bit about how I believe we are shifting towards a more transparent world – perhaps even a radically transparent world. And so it’s interesting to see an architect pick up on this broader theme and translate it into physical space.

    The floor is transparent. The partitions are transparent. The furniture is transparent. And you can clearly discern the interfaces between old and new.

    Good architecture, at least in my opinion, should reflect what is happening in our broader society. That’s why I believe that studying the history of art and architecture is really like studying the history of the world.

    For more photos of the project, click here.

    Image by Ossip van Duivenbode via MVRDV

  • Why blog?

    Someone recently asked me: “Why do you blog?”

    I have lots to say whenever someone asks me this and I’ve written a few of those things down, here. Obviously I believe that there’s tremendous value in writing your own blog and reading the blogs of others.

    It’s for these reasons that I really enjoyed one of Seth Godin’s posts this week called: Read more blogs. The post is about using an RSS reader (Feedly) to keep track of blogs (which I do), but it was the lead-in that caught my attention:

    Other than writing a daily blog (a practice that’s free, and priceless), reading more blogs is one of the best ways to become smarter, more effective and more engaged in what’s going on. The last great online bargain.

    Good blogs aren’t focused on the vapid race for clicks that other forms of social media encourage. Instead, they patiently inform and challenge, using your time with respect.

    He then ends by arguing that we shouldn’t sit idle while powerful gatekeepers like Google and Facebook “push us toward ad-filled noisy media.”

    The reality of many personal blogs is that they don’t live and die on clicks like other online media. It’s a labor of love and that makes it a unique place on the internet. I clearly like this place and, if you’re a reader of this blog, I suspect you might too.

    Thank you for reading my personal journal.

  • Event: Community Consultation for Mirvish Village

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    One June 13, 2016 from 6:30 to 9:00 pm, the City of Toronto will be hosting a community consultation meeting for the proposed redevelopment of Honest Ed’s / Mirvish Village. 

    The meeting will be held at the Bickford Centre Auditorium at 777 Bloor Street West (across from Christie Pits Park).

    The purpose of the meeting is to present Westbank’s revised development proposal, which was submitted to the city last month. Their first proposal was submitted last summer (July 2015). 

    Some of the key changes include a new on-site public park, the retention of additional heritage buildings (now 21 in total), more pedestrian porosity, and the retention of Honest Ed’s alley in its current location.

    I consider Westbank to be one of the most thoughtful developers in the city and so I’m pretty excited to see this one evolve. I’m planning to attend the community meeting and maybe I’ll see you there.

    Below are a couple of other renderings to give you a taste.

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