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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Tag: corktown

  • Lisbon Hotel

    My friend David Wex recently opened up a new bar called Lisbon Hotel, and this evening I went to check it out with him. It’s not in Lisbon. And it’s not a hotel. But it is deliberately designed to feel like a hotel lobby bar, and it is a great place for drinks and snacks. I recommend both of the dishes pictured above — especially the cucumber and dill one.

    It’s also housed in the River City community, which his firm Urban Capital developed. And I think that’s something. Developers are often criticized when they put in boring (yet profitable) uses in the ground floors of their buildings. And this is not that (though hopefully it’s still profitable). This is him and his partners wanting to do something cool and help create a “place.”

    Who said new ideas need old buildings? Rhetorical question. It was Jane Jacobs who said this.

    For more on Lisbon Hotel, check out this profile in Toronto Life.

  • The Livabl Launch podcast

    Matthew Slutsky (formerly of BuzzBuzzHome fame and now of Livabl fame) recently invited me on his podcast to talk about some of our current and upcoming condominium projects, as well as about the market in general.

    Despite my best attempts, I only briefly talk about NFTs and crypto (in the context of our One Delisle project). So if any of you are sick of hearing that from me, the episode should be overall fairly tolerable.

    To have a listen, click here. It’s about 30 minutes.

    Thanks again for having me, Matthew.

  • The Future of Hamilton

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    As many of you know, we have a development project in Hamilton, Ontario – more specifically in the Corktown neighborhood. We filed our development application earlier this summer.

    Because of this I was invited to participate in a Bisnow event on The Future of Hamilton. It takes place the morning of Wednesday, September 12, 2018 in The Alley by Core Urban. I walked this space last summer while it was under construction and so I’m excited to see it finished.

    For those of you who aren’t familiar with Core Urban, they are doing some really great work in Hamilton and have established themselves as a responsible city builder with a focus on adaptive reuse projects.

    Steve Kulakowsky, who is co-owner of Core Urban, will be speaking at the event along with the mayor, some guy who has pretentiously included his middle name, and many other smart people. To see the full list of speakers and to buy a ticket, click here.

    Photo of Hamilton by Vivek Trivedi on Unsplash

  • Introducing the new Corktown Plaza

    This evening Slate hosted a pre-application community meeting in Corktown, Hamilton, where we presented our proposed design for the redevelopment of Corktown Plaza. 

    There was a short presentation by Slate, GSP Group, CORE Architects, and Janet Rosenberg and Studio, and then we shifted to an open house format where members of the community could speak directly with all members of the project team.

    Below are a few of the project renderings, all completed by our friends at ADHOC Studio. 

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    The proposed design includes fine grain and large format retail spaces and a 9.5m pedestrian setback along John Street South (rendering #2 and #3); grade-related family-oriented townhouses on Young Street and Catharine Street South (rendering #4); and two 100% rental towers (31 and 34 storeys) to be built over two phases.

    The other notable feature is a mid-block pedestrian connection that will run from John to Catharine and become an important place for local public art. The plan is to work with the community and Councillor Jason Farr to run a separate engagement process for this component of the project. We want to work with local artists. If you have any suggestions, please send them over.

    Here, here, and here are what some people had to say about the proposal on Twitter. Thanks to everyone who attended this evening.

  • Pre-application community meeting in Hamilton

    At the end of last year, Slate hosted a “pre-design community meeting” for the redevelopment of Corktown Plaza in Hamilton. It was the first time we hosted a meeting like this.

    We learned things that evening and this May 24th we’ll be hosting our “pre-application community meeting.” See above for the full invite details. Lots of pre things.

    At last year’s meeting we had no design. It was about learning. At this month’s meeting we will be presenting a design proposal for the site. So hopefully some of you will be able to make it out.

    Regular scheduled programming will resume tomorrow on the blog.

  • We’re hosting a pre-design community meeting in Hamilton

    This fall Slate acquired a retail center in Hamilton called Corktown Plaza. It is the block bounded by John Street South, Young Street, Catharine Street South, and Forest Avenue. It is just south of the Hamilton GO Centre in downtown.

    It is currently a much used single storey retail plaza with a large surface parking lot facing John Street South. It’s still early days, but the long-term plan is to redevelop it into a mixed-use retail and residential complex.

    Before putting pen to paper, the team is hosting a “pre-design community meeting” this Tuesday, December 12, 2017 at 7pm at the Church of Ascension down the street. Address is 64 Forest Avenue (accessible entrance at 258 John Street South).

    Here is the invite (embedded tweet):

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    The purpose of the meeting is to gather feedback from the community before beginning design. We want to know what’s working today, what’s not working today, and what would be ideal for the future. 

    CORE Architects and GSP Group (planning) will be in attendance along with the Slate team. The format will be brief presentations followed by interactive breakout sessions. There will be trace paper on hand so that we can all put pen to paper.

    If you live and/or work in the area or are simply interested in the future of Hamilton, please feel free to join us on Tuesday evening. If you can, send a quick email to rsvp@kga-inc.com letting us know you’ll be coming. But just showing up is also perfectly fine.