Tag: development

• A 6-storey boutique hotel proposed for Kensington Market

  Fun fact: The bike I used throughout most of undergrad at the University of Toronto was a jaunty-looking red thing that I purchased from Bikes on Wheels in Kensington Market. I used it every day. It was a workhorse.

  And when I eventually moved to Philadelphia for grad school, I took it with me. Let me tell you, I probably stood out like a sore thumb riding that thing through the depths of West Philly. But then it got a flat tire and it sat in the corner of my apartment for the rest of the school year. I couldn’t tell you what happened to it after that.

  This is a mostly irrelevant story except that a development application was recently filed for a site in Kensington that includes the former home of Bikes on Wheels. It’s a new six-storey boutique hotel designed by Joel Gerber Architect. The design looks great, and I like the yellow pitched-roof top hat that comes with it. It will look fun on the Kensington skyline.

  

  But even more importantly, this is exactly the kind of infill development that Toronto needs, all over. We should be doing everything we can to reduce the barriers to building at this scale. It’s not easy, which is one of the reasons why we are not seeing a flurry of 6-storey buildings all along our avenues, even though they are technically now permissible.

  So, whoever the team is behind this project, I wish them a speedy and straightforward approval.

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  Project rendering via blogTO

  2026.08.27

• How Junction House built laneway towns for urban families

  

  Junction House was designed with 7 laneway towns on the north side of the building. The above photo is from 2023, right after we installed the wayfinding signage, which is why you can see the construction fencing sitting in the laneway. Alongside Superkul (architects), we made the design decision to incorporate ground-related towns for two reasons.

  First, we are supporters of laneway housing, and one of our city-building agendas is to find ways to revitalize and animate these spaces in Toronto. Incorporating laneway towns was a natural way to do this.

  Second, we were able to tuck these two-storey suites into the same height as our ground-floor retail on the south side. This meant that, even though our sales team was advising us that these would likely sell for a relatively low price per square foot compared to the rest of the building, it was the right business decision. It was still more accretive than additional single-level retail (or retail with a far less valuable mezzanine space) or some other unproductive back-of-house space.

  

  As a development aside, we originally designed these towns to be raised up from the laneway, accessible via a few steps. But during the rezoning process, the city asked us to shave down the overall height of the building to meet some symbolic height in metres that the local City Councillor demanded we achieve. It was frustrating, but we complied, and that’s why the towns are designed the way they are.

  Looking back on these suites a few years later, I continue to believe that we made the right big-picture decision, especially because of how they are now being lived in. These suites have a very high percentage of families with young children — children who often make use of and play in the quiet laneway.

  In hindsight, this makes perfect sense. These are larger, grade-related suites that offer some degree of relative affordability. In my view, it’s further evidence that not all families want to flee to the suburbs. We just have to find ways to deliver the right kind of urban housing for them.

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  Second photo by Doublespace Photography

  2026.08.23

• Why do cities build skyscrapers?

  Very generally speaking, cities build skyscrapers because of some mix of natural market forces and symbolic prestige. In cities like New York and Hong Kong, where land is extremely scarce and valuable, the only option is to go up. Tall buildings are essential. And in cities like Dubai, I think it’s fair to say that symbolic prestige has been the greater motivator, at least at the outset of the city’s modern reinvention as a global city. Tall, over-the-top buildings helped put the city on the map, even when tall, over-the-top buildings weren’t necessary from a direct economic standpoint.

  Another way to encourage tall buildings is to simply restrict everything else. Ontario’s Places to Grow Act of 2005 was well-intentioned. It was designed to encourage intensification, support transit investment, and curb urban sprawl. I believe that all of these things are desirable planning outcomes. But one of the ways that intensification was sold, politically, was that growth would only be directed to specific areas and that the preeminence of single-family housing in the region would not be in any way threatened.

  The result is what has been pejoratively referred to as “tall and sprawl,” meaning tall buildings surrounded by vast swaths of low-density housing. It’s a built-form contrast that feels unnatural precisely because it is a market distortion created by policy. In a pure market without zoning constraints, the likely built-form outcome would be a smoother density gradient down from major urban nodes and transit stations (where land values tend to be higher). Of course, the Toronto region is filled with countless counterexamples of this.

  Now, to be fair, good work is being done to address this missing layer of medium density, but we’re not there yet. And we’re still working through the supply of the last cycle. Rachelle Younglai recently published an article in The Globe and Mail called “Condo developers outside Toronto feeling the biggest strain from market’s downturn.” This is not surprising. Peripheral markets generally get hit the hardest during real estate downturns and take the longest to bounce back. But on top of this, there are suburban towers that probably didn’t need to get built. The economic imperative was tenuous but for the planning restrictions and the pre-construction condo market.

  My suggestion would be to upzone the areas surrounding these towers and remove as many development constraints as possible, especially around transit nodes. This may seem paradoxical given we’re currently talking about excess supply, but the glut is likely a product mismatch problem. Allowing the surrounding areas to fill in invites the market to build what is most in demand, smooth out the density gradient, build amenities, and create destinations that could then lift the value of the entire node.

  This is not an immediate solution, but it’s a path toward a more natural market outcome. Need a case study to point to? Look to Tokyo. Flexible permissions, mixed-use zones by default, and an orientation around rail have allowed Tokyo to organically evolve into one of the most livable global cities on the planet.

  2026.08.18

• Does design and brand equity sell?

  It is a core belief of mine that design and brand equity create value in real estate. But to what extent is this true? And how much should a developer invest in these things? Is it worth spending a 3-5% licensing fee on a cool brand? Will the price premiums really be there? Here are some ways to think about it.

  One, good design can just mean good taste and, as we talked about yesterday, giving a shit. This doesn’t need to cost any more than bad design; you just have to put in the effort. This is the low-hanging fruit to be seized.

  Two, good design solves problems. And if you’re solving problems that increase returns and development yield, promote sales or leasing velocity, and/or lower operating expenses, then you have tangible value. You can start to figure out the return on your investment, and that helps with decision-making.

  Three, good design can also just mean cool and luxurious materials and details. Here, you’ve got the highest cost of our three options, but it may be important in order to differentiate your offering, drive scarcity value, and create prestige. This one can be harder to evaluate quantitatively.

  All of these approaches ultimately intertwine with the overall brand of a project and of the developer, and that’s the next piece for us to discuss.

  The concept of brand equity has always been fascinating to me because on some level, it’s simply the premium people are willing to pay “for a name” because of the perception they have of that name. It is, by one definition, the “sum of consumers’ thoughts, feelings, and attitudes about your brand that influences their willingness to pay for your product.”

  The challenge with brand equity is that it takes a long time to build, which is one of the reasons developers often borrow it (i.e., license it) from established consumer-facing brands to use on their projects. The other reason is that real estate tends to be local and slow-moving, so it’s objectively difficult to build a global brand.

  Design and brand work together. If you’re developing an Aman Residence, the brand will dictate its standards so you don’t negatively impact the equity it has built up over time. But now we get back to our original question: To what extent does it make sense to invest in design and brand?

  In economics, the definition of a luxury good or superior good is that demand increases more than proportionally as incomes rise. What this effectively means is that when times are good and people are feeling wealthy, they tend to overspend on luxury goods. And when times are not so good, they will often underspend on luxury goods and focus on normal or necessary goods.

  What this means for real estate is that there is an opportunity to capture additional value through investments in design and brand when the overall market supports it. But during downturns, this pricing premium may feel like it disappears. Still, prudent investments in design and brand can lead to selling or leasing when the rest of the market isn’t. Your investments bought liquidity.

  When Steve Jobs launched the original NeXT computer, he overshot the market by a wide margin, and it was a commercial failure. And when he launched the iPhone, critics similarly said it was too expensive. Apple ended up having to lower its initial pricing slightly, but the product turned out to be exactly what consumers wanted.

  Finding the right sweet spot depends on local market conditions and the point you’re at in the development cycle. This involves as much art as it does science. But perhaps the above framework can start to help you think through the options.

  2026.08.12

• Site Tour: Craft Residences in the Junction

  This week, my friend Bill, who is the founder of Gairloch Developments, took me through his Craft Residences project. Bill has done and is doing a number of beautiful projects in the Junction and Craft is one of them.

  When we met up on Dundas, I immediately complimented him on the project’s use of green (which is, of course, Globizen’s brand colour). Craft has green brick mortar, green windows (on the outside), and green picket balcony guards. Love it.

  His response was, “It feels to me like a housing project you’d find in London.” And I think that’s exactly right.

  There are some design details that objectively just cost more to design and build. Often the simpler the detail, the more expensive it is to build. As one of my favourite design sayings goes, “Only the rich can afford this much nothing.”

  But there are other design details that don’t cost more; you just have to give a shit and make good decisions. Bill gives lots of shits, and it shows in his work. I’m super happy that he’s building in the Junction. Below are my photos from the site tour.

  P.S. Globizen has an upcoming, soon-to-be-announced project where we’ve been looking at design details to specifically communicate our brand. Some of them will be green. Please take it as a compliment, Bill.

  Update: Craft Residences was designed by BDP Quadrangle. Heather Rolleston is the principal in charge and senior designer.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  2026.08.11

• Why real estate development is an art form

  When I interviewed Michael Cooper, founder of Dream, back in 2016, one of the things he said to me was that real estate development is one of the most creative things you can do. What did he mean by that?

  As a developer, you have to problem-solve within extreme constraints. There are zoning regulations, building codes, investor interests, neighbourhood associations, market conditions, and many other sometimes-competing demands at play.

  The job of the developer is to navigate through this maze, rely on the expertise of others, and come up with the best possible solution. That requires creativity, and it’s what Cooper was getting at.

  The process is also self-reinforcing: constraints are good for creativity. As filmmaker and actor Orson Welles once said, “The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.” In architecture school, we used to always say that the hardest thing is a blank canvas, because design is about solving problems. Constraints present problems.

  Of course, developers can’t solve these problems on their own. They rely on talented multidisciplinary teams and the advice they provide. But it’s important to keep in mind specific professionals tend to view problems through the lens of their discipline.

  A lawyer might feel strongly about a particular legal clause, or a structural engineer might view a particular design as optimal, but ultimately the developer is going to have to take these recommendations and evaluate them against the entire list of constraints they are facing. It becomes a creative trade-off.

  The developer has to have the largest field of view. Seeing the whole board is how you make it out of the maze.

  2026.08.05

• Toronto approves new Rental Housing Supply Program

  This past week, Toronto City Council approved the launch of a new affordable housing initiative called the Rental Housing Supply Program. Here’s the agenda item if you’d like to dive into the details and read some of the supporting reports. There are a number of components to the program, and one of them is a subsidy that will be administered by way of a forgivable interest-free loan:

  Subject to the adoption of the Rental Housing Supply Program, the City will continue to support RGI and affordable rental homes through the allocation of up to $260,000 per eligible affordable rental and RGI home. This is the maximum allowable funding allocation under the Rental Housing Supply Program. Actual funding per project will be determined based on the evaluation of applications on a site-by-site basis, in consultation with the Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer, and based on project parameters and additional sources of funding that can be leveraged to support the project’s financial viability. These funds will be provided as interest free forgivable loans to eligible and approved projects and will be tied to milestones and requirements in agreements with housing providers.

  Total funding for the program is $351 million. And the intent is that these funds will be distributed in the near term to 18 affordable housing projects in the city, all of which are expected to start construction sometime between now and the end of 2025. In total, this is anticipated to create about 6,000 new affordable rental homes. That’s a good thing.

  Now, I don’t know anything about these projects. I don’t know if $260k is the right figure. And I don’t know if a forgivable interest-free loan is the exact right mechanism to deliver these funds. But what the program does do is recognize this: Deeply affordable housing cannot be built without some form of subsidy.

  Developers are often criticized for only building expensive housing. But the reality is that developers are, for the most part, takers of market pricing. In other words, we can’t just decide to build for less. We can reduce build and finish quality to get costs down, but at a certain point, the cost to build is the cost to build.

  And if that cost to build isn’t what the market would view as affordable, then you’re not going to get there without a subsidy. No developer is going to build if their expected revenues are less than their costs. Directionally, that’s what this new program appears to recognize.

  2024.06.29

• Build whatever you want

  As a gross generalization, there are probably two ways in which one can approach the building of a new building. The first is based on demand. You believe that there is demand for new housing or new office space or some other use, and so you decide to build new space in order to satisfy that exact demand.

  Sometimes developers get it wrong and build too much space or the wrong kind of space, but the reason for building remains the same: you believe that there is a market waiting for you.

  The second way to build is to completely disregard the market and just build whatever you feel like building because it is going to serve some other alleged purpose. And that is arguably what is happening in Saudi Arabia with The Line and what happened in places like North Korea with its “Hotel of Doom.”

  I suppose that there is a chance that somebody in North Korea believed (or pretended to believe) that there was demand for a skyscraper that was 1,000 feet tall and housed 3,000 hotel rooms, but in reality, the real reason was that leadership thought it looked cool and that it would make for good propaganda.

  To be fair, there was probably also some hope that it would spur demand and attract foreign investment. But it’s still a case of just building whatever you want.

  2023.01.25

• Use-it-or-lose-it entitlements

  One of the things that cities often try and stamp out is speculation. Homes should not sit empty (enter vacant home tax). Storefronts should not sit empty (enter vacant commercial tax). And development land should not sit undeveloped. To correct this latter problem, one idea that is sometimes floated around is “use-it-or-lose-it” zoning.

  The way it works today in, I believe, most cities, is that if you do a site-specific rezoning on a property — and secure additional density — you get those special permissions forever. If you want to wait 100 years before starting construction, you are technically entitled to do that. Of course, in the interim, no new housing is actually being created. It’s all just on paper.

  The idea with “use-it-or-lose-it” entitlements is that — instead of these permissions lasting forever — they would expire after a certain period of time, which would mean that the entire rezoning process would need to be done all over again. These take time (at least a few years) and cost money (it’s in the millions). And so it has been suggested that this would incentivize developers to not sit on entitled land.

  While I do understand where this line of thinking is coming from, let me make a few points:

  • Generally speaking, most developers don’t just sit on entitled land for fun. They need things to happen, and to happen quickly, so that value can be realized. If there is a problem of too many developers not actually building, it could be a sign that there are other market factors impacting feasibility.
  • There is nothing wrong with rezoning a property and then “flipping it out” to another developer. This is often viewed negatively. But some developers only rezone properties and some developers only buy zoned sites. These can be different phases of the value chain. A rezoning can take years and millions of dollars, and so sometimes developers don’t have the wherewithal or desire to do both.
  • A use-it-or-lose-it approach unfairly punishes developers during market cycles and bear markets, like the one we are experiencing right now. There is no way to predict when the next global pandemic will hit, when construction costs might surge 40%, and when the fed could start rapidly increasing rates to calm inflation. Maybe waiting out the storm is all you can do.
  • If you’re building condominium housing in our market, you generally need pre-sales in order to secure a construction loan. Let’s call it 70% pre-sold. What happens if this takes longer than expected? And what happens if you sell 50%, your site-specific rezoning expires, and then you have to restart the entire process? At this point and in this current market environment, you would likely have to cancel the entire project and reboot it.
  • Timing is important. To give a specific project example, we had planned to launch condominium pre-sales for our One Delisle project in the fall of 2020. And we were ready to do that. But sentiment didn’t feel right. Too pandemic-y still, and so we waited until the spring of 2021. This turned out to be the right decision. But what would have happened had we had this timing gun to our head? (Truthfully, it always feels like there’s a timing gun to our head.)
  • I have written about this before, but go-to-market strategies are changing in this current environment. It is taking longer to start sales and construction because, among other things, developers are spending more time trying to pin down their construction costs. Would rezoning expiries take all of this into consideration and adjust accordingly?
  • Finally, if one is going to do something like force developers to pull all of their building permits within X months of receiving zoning approvals — or else suffer the consequences — then everything required to get there should also have a maximum timeline associated with it. In other words, cities would also need to do things like commit to issuing permits within Y months of receiving a submission — or else. It’s only fair that this cuts both ways. But just to be very, very clear, I do not think this is a good idea.

  What I am broadly saying is that (1) development is a pain in the ass and (2) developers are already heavily incentivized to move quickly and make things happen. It is not uncommon for projects to take 5-10 years from site acquisition to completion. And a lot of unexpected things can happen during that time period. Hopefully losing your entitlements doesn’t become one of them.

  2022.10.10

• Weekend walking tour

  I had a friend — who I know from architecture school — visiting from Detroit for the weekend, so we did a little building tour on Sunday morning.

  This is the elevated (and half-finished) CIBC Square Park that spans over the rail lines leading into Union Station. The benches are beautiful. On the right side of the second photo are also fire pits that are in the process of being setup.

  

  

  This is us nerding out (photo credit to Neat B).

  

  And this is the view looking down Bay Street from the stairs that lead up to the park. We tried to snoop around inside a little but a security guard asked us to leave.

  

  This is T3 Bayside — a new timber office building going up on the waterfront. Apparently it is the tallest of its kind in North America at the moment. I am also embarrassed to say that I just learned that T3 stands for timber, transit, and technology, and that it is part of a broader office development strategy that Hines is rolling out.

  

  

  This is Tridel’s Aquavista. I’m looking forward to the ground floor spaces getting leased up in this area. All of the ingredients seem to be here for a vibrant waterfront community.

  

  This is the next Aqua-something project. We all assumed that there must be strict umbrella rules in place.

  

  This is Monde by Moshe Safdie & BDP Quadrangle (architects) and Great Gulf (developer). It kind of reminds me of 56 Leonard Street (New York) from this elevation. I guess I’m not used to seeing it from the south side.

  

  Finally, this is Sherbourne Common, which is both a park and an important piece of stormwater infrastructure. It treats stormwater before it gets discharged into Lake Ontario and it also helps to reduce poop from flowing into Lake Ontario as a result of combined sewer overflows.

  

  It’s fun being a tourist in your own city. We should all do it more often. It makes you appreciate what you have.

  2022.08.07