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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  • [vimeo 76207227 w=500 h=281]

    Biking in Toronto means dodging cabs that don’t signal and closely watching parked cars for doors that might be about to open and could catapult you up and into the air. We have little in the way of dedicated cycling infrastructure. In fact, our incompetent mayor actually celebrates the removal of bike lanes. 

    Despite all this, Toronto has a fairly robust cycling culture. There’s no shortage of bearded hipsters riding around on fixies with a U-lock in their back pocket. However, it’s nothing in comparison to the city of Groningen in the Netherlands, where over 50% all of trips are made on a bicycle.

    If you’re into cycling or want to be converted, I recommend you take 15 minutes to watch the above video. The hoards of cyclists are interesting to see and they provide good background on how Groningen got to where it is today. Hint: It involves dramatic measures from a leftist city government.

    (Source: http://player.vimeo.com/)

  • Are department stores going to die?

    Here’s an interesting graph I found on Businessweek that outlines retail sales growth in America over the past decade:

    image

    What’s interesting is not that furniture stores suffered during the housing crisis of 2008-2009 – this much is obvious – but that there seems to be a few other trends at work.

    For one, warehouse club sales have gone from being the highest growth to the slowest growth sector (excluding, for a second, department stores). The urbanist in me wonders if this has to do with “The Great Inversion.” That is, the trend towards more and more young people choosing to live in inner city neighbourhoods – where warehouse club penetration is low – as opposed to the suburbs.

    The other notable sector is department stores. It’s the only sector that seemingly hasn’t been able to rebound along with the rest of the economy. I think this points to another larger trend at play: there are structural problems with the department store model. They’ve been beaten up by category killers, the internet and the fact that individual retailers seem to want to manage their own brands and experiences from top to bottom.

    I know that for me, personally, I rarely shop at department stores. What about you?

  • The essence of the stock market is speculation

    Dutch architecture firm OMA (Office for Metropolitan Architecture) has a subtle way of being incredibly subversive in their architecture.

    The recently completed 1.9 million square foot Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE) building is presently making the rounds online and I personally find it incredibly striking. It has the same timelessness about it that makes me love Mies’ Toronto Dominion Centre.

    But it wasn’t until I read the description on OMA’s website that I decided to blog about it. Here’s the first paragraph:

    “For millennia, the solid building stands on a solid base; it is an image that has survived modernity. Typically, the base anchors a structure and connects it emphatically to the ground. The essence of the stock market is speculation: it is based on capital, not gravity.

    All of these factors suggest an architectural invention: our project is a building with a floating base. As if it is lifted by the same speculative euphoria that drives the market, the former base has crept up the tower to become a raised podium.”

    It’s a powerful, yet potentially controversial, symbol, as one could argue that efficient markets should, at least in theory, operate not on ramped speculation but upon fundamental values. However, if markets are an expectations game, perhaps you could simply argue that the building symbolizes a perceived bright future.

    Either way, very interesting.

  • Tech is now the second largest job sector in New York City

    According to a recent report called Building a Digital City, which I found via Fred Wilson’s blog, tech is now the second largest job sector in New York City behind financial services (which includes real estate). There are an estimated 262,000 tech workers in the city earning wages in excess of $30 billion.

    This is a really interesting stat that speaks to the diversity of New York’s economy and the ability for it to continually reinvent itself. But what I found particularly interesting, was the following comment by Fred Wilson:

    “And the reason tech is growing so fast in NYC is that it is embedding itself in all of these other industries. It’s not entirely clear to me whether Gilt is a tech company or a fashion/retail company, it is not clear to me whether ZocDoc is a tech company or a health care company, it is not clear to me whether Codecademy is a tech company or an education company.”

    This is very much the way I think about so called tech companies today. I recently had a Rotman colleague say to me that he felt the startup world was becoming saturated. Everyone is now seemingly working on some new app.

    But I like to think of it slightly differently. As Fred’s comment above suggests, a lot of startups today aren’t purely tech companies. They’re just out to solve a problem and it just so happens that technology and the internet are creating all sorts of opportunities for new solutions.

    I also read a blog called Platform Connected and the author put it like this:

    “In the future, every company will be a tech company. We already see this change around us as companies move to restructure their business models in a way that uses data to create value. We are moving from linear to networked business models, from dumb pipes to intelligent platforms. All businesses will need to move to this new model at some point, or risk being disrupted by platforms that do.”

    So there you have it. Software really is eating the world.

  • Mjölk

    I first heard about Mjölk a few years ago. Located in the Junction, it’s a gorgeous gallery & store dedicated to Scandinavian and Japanese craftsmanship. It has everything from furniture to hand crafts. It’s well worth a visit if you’re into clean lines and the “pure aesthetic of the north.”

    Started by a husband and wife duo, the couple also own the building and live above the store. They recently renovated their home and it was just awarded a 2013 Toronto Urban Design Award. You can see all the photos here. I particularly like the third floor inner courtyard:

    If you’re curious as to what brought them to the Junction, check out this response from a Dwell interview dated 2011:

    “Downtown became so expensive, and that pushed people either east or west. In the past five years, this area has really become a destination. A lot of young, independent businesses have popped up, starting with reclamation stores Smash and Post and Beam. There’s also Crema Coffee Co., Pandemonium Books & Discs, Junction Fromagerie (a Quebecois cheese shop), and Bunner’s gluten-free vegan bakery, to name a few.”

    I like to think of residential properties as a leading indicator for gentrification. Sometimes it’s easy to miss the change taking place behind closed doors though.

     

  • Data centers and the arctic circle

    I don’t think a lot of people consider the spatial implications of the online world. By this, I’m specifically referring to the massive data centers required to power the internet.

    Earlier this year Facebook opened its first European data center in Sweden, less than 70 miles from the arctic circle. It’s 900,000 square feet. That’s about equivalent to a 102 storey condo tower.

    Behind the virtual worlds we live in – Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and others – lies nondescript buildings with repeating rows of machines inside them. They’re the complete antithesis of the vibrant lives we pretend to have on the consumer web, but they’re making it all possible. It feels just like the Matrix.

    And there are some interesting shifts taking place in the data center space. Facebook – through its Open Compute Project – now designs its own centers and makes the work available to others, for free. It’s an “open hardware” play that could threaten incumbents in the space such as Dell and Cisco.

    Facebook’s goal is “to build one of the most efficient computing infrastructures at the lowest possible cost.” Their Swedish outpost represents their first self-designed center. And it’s proven to be a highly efficient one.

    While the average data center might use 3 watts to produce 1 watt of computing tower, Facebook’s Swedish center was able to get that ratio down to 1.04 : 1, largely because the colder climate allowed for a dramatic reduction in cooling loads. It makes a ton of a sense.

    I’ve actually thought about this before. Why aren’t more data centers – which have massive cooling requirements – built in colder climates? I just so happen to know of a country with lots of prime arctic circle real estate.

  • From sunset to sunrise

    Tonight is Nuit Blanche in Toronto. Running from sunset to sunrise, the festival is a collection of more than 110 contemporary art projects scattered all around downtown. It’s one of my favourite events in the city.

    This year one of my good friends has organized an installation called My Virtual Dream. It involves some sort of large dome structure and is located at University & College in front of the UofT pharmacy building on the north west corner.

    But other than the art, one of the things I love about Nuit Blanche is what it does for the city. It brings everybody out and onto the streets in order to explore and experience the city in a totally different way. Spaces get repurposed and new environments emerge. It’s a fun time to be in Toronto.

  • Mirvish + Gehry

    I was reading Novae Res Urbis this morning and they had a piece on the 3 tower Mirvish + Gehry proposal in Toronto’s Entertainment District. It was talking about David Mirvish’s “sales pitch” to the Empire Club of Canada this week, an attempt to help overcome the criticism around the design, height and overall density of the project. The article ended by saying that the developer will be appealing to the OMB this January.

    I know that I’m probably biased in this matter, but I fail to understand the concern around height and density – particularly since the site is 2 blocks from a subway station. Why are we – citizens and policy makers – so obsessed with building height? Good architecture and urban design involves a lot more than the number of floors. Can we not have more sophisticated conversations about built form rather than fixating ourselves on building height?

    Secondly, whenever a building gets proposed in Toronto that attempts to, literally, step outside of the box it gets pegged as controversial. Take, for example, the Royal Ontario Museum by Daniel Libeskind. When people used to ask me what I thought of the crystal addition, I used to say that I was a fan simply because it was pissing off so many people. Love it or hate it, it’s architecture. The same can’t be said for a lot of the other stuff going up in this city. Why doesn’t mediocrity invoke the same response? It should.

    So my issue is that we seem to be far more comfortable accepting banality than we are with accepting bold new changes like the Mirvish + Gehry proposal. And frankly, if we could actually pull off three 80+ storey towers, it would be down right impressive in this market. How many cities in the world have a real estate market robust enough to support this scale of development?

    But this is not a post of unconditional support. I do have concerns.

    I’m concerned that 4 heritage designated properties will need to be destroyed in order for this project to move forward. This makes me wonder: What’s the point of a designation if the building can still be demolished? I’m actually surprised that this topic hasn’t been getting its fair share of attention. Again, we’ve been more interested in talking about building height.

    Further west along King Street, I have similar concerns with a development proposal that would demolish “restaurant row.” This a spectacularly successful – albeit touristy – restaurant strip and I would hate to see it go. It’s difficult to create this kind of fine grain retail experience from scratch. 

    Now don’t get me wrong, I believe in development. I am a developer, after all. But I don’t believe we should be so quick to erase our history.

  • [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBYPuSE0huc?wmode=transparent&autohide=1&egm=0&hd=1&iv_load_policy=3&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&showsearch=0&w=500&h=375]

    I wasn’t at TEDxToronto this year, but I just stumbled upon the conference opening video and I think it’s brilliantly done (by @BizMediaAgency). You need to watch it. It makes me proud to be a Torontonian.

    (Source: http://www.youtube.com/)

  • Why I came back to TAS

    After I rejoined TAS, I was asked to write a blog post on why I came back. It went live this week on tasdesignbuild.com, and so here it is:

    After almost four years at Morguard Investments, I’ve made the move back to TAS. The first time I was here was in 2008, while I was still completing my master’s in architecture and real estate development at the University of Pennsylvania.

    I was then, as I am obviously now, a big supporter of TAS’s commitment to “Shaping Beautiful Cities™”; however, I decided to spend some time on the commercial and more institutional side of real estate. During that time I was fortunate enough to work under someone I consider to be one of the best in the business. She taught me a ton and I’m hugely grateful for that opportunity.

    So why did I make the switch? I did it for one simple reason: alignment.

    I love cities. That’s why I blog about them daily. I’m also a big believer in the power of design to make them more beautiful, livable, prosperous and environmentally sustainable. I see the vitality of our cities as the key to Canada’s overall economic competitiveness and I see this vitality as starting with each individual neighbourhood. Every building matters. As a trained architect, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to shake this belief. Real estate is, and will always be, something more to me than just bricks and mortar.

    So when I say alignment, I mean a shared sense of purpose. A belief that, as real estate developers, we have the opportunity (and responsibility) to shape cities and, hopefully, improve the way people live, work and play. It’s no easy task, but I think half the battle is knowing that we’re all in this business for the same reason.

    Over the past five years I’ve watched TAS evolve as an organization. From its roots in the custom home business to a company in transition, it has grown to become–in my humble, and now biased, opinion–one of the best builders in the city.

    TAS is now laser-focused on developing urban mixed-use buildings and is committed to doing so using its Four Pillars of Sustainability™. This means that everything TAS does is considered in terms of its impact on (1) the social fabric of communities, (2) the environment, (3) culture and (4) local economies.

    It’s an admirable ambition and it really resonated with me.

    I was born and raised in Toronto and I can say with all honesty that I care deeply about this city and its future. It pains me when I see buildings go up that clearly privilege economics over experience–not only because it makes for poor city building, but because I think it’s pretty clear that good design also pays (to put on my MBA hat for a second). So on a more basic level, I could also say that we’re aligned around one simple goal: To build really great urban buildings. It doesn’t need to be more complicated than that.

    But this distinction around urban buildings is an important one because I believe that our world is entering a decidedly urban era. In 1900, only 13% of the world’s population was urban. Today, 75% of the developed world’s population is urban and by 2025 that number is expected to rise to 84%. At the same time, cities all around the world are witnessing what author Alan Ehrenhalt calls “The Great Inversion.” Census figures show that there’s a growing preference for more compact and walkable communities – people are returning to city centres.

    Having said all this, I truly mean it when I say that I’m thrilled to be joining a team of ambitious people, passionate about cities and design. I’m honoured by the opportunity and I look forward to collectively working towards making Toronto an even greater city.