Tag: jackson

• US counties with the highest per-capita income

  Below are the US counties with the highest per-capita income (as of 2018), according to this recent Bloomberg article:

  

  Teton, WY is home to the Jackson Hole valley (which has some of the best skiing in the world). And Pitkin, CO is home to Aspen. Turns out, rich people like ski towns.

  Interestingly enough, 2018 saw per capita income grow in the greatest number of US counties since 1981. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, it was 97% of all counties:

  

  For the full Bloomberg article, click here.

  Charts: Bloomberg

  2019.11.29

• Jets and real estate

  Jackson Hole Airport (JAC) has one runway. It is 6,300 feet long by 150 feet wide and it was originally constructed in 1959. In 1965, the first of many proposals was put forward to lengthen the runway to 8,000 feet so that jets could fly into the airport. But it was never adopted. Subsequent proposals were made in 1992 and 1999, but they were again highly contentious and similarly never adopted. The runway remains 6,300 feet long.

  However in the early 1980s jets began using the existing runway and the area started to boom. According to this old New York Times article from 2002, the town’s growth exactly parallels the introduction of jet service at JAC. The town doubled from 9,000 people in 1980 to 18,000 people in 2000. Its per capita income also shot up from a steady $20,000 in 1984 to more than $67,000 in 2011 – making Teton County one of the richest in the US.

  Tourism destinations and second home markets like Jackson Hole are heavily dependent on access. In 2003, a total of 211,788 passengers flew through JAC airport and, in 2016, it was over 340,000 people. But second home markets are also the first to get hit during macroeconomics shocks. Following the 2008 financial crisis, passenger volumes at JAC didn’t recover until 2014.

  If you look at air traffic throughout the year you’ll also see that it is highly seasonal. Below is a chart showing monthly passenger volumes at JAC from 2003 to 2016 (data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics). Some of you may be surprised to see that more people visit Jackson Hole in the summer, compared to the winter. But what’s perhaps even more conspicuous is the sharp drop off during the swing seasons.

  

  I am thinking about all of this not only because I just got back from Jackson Hole, but also because I am very interested in the demand drivers that fuel the real estate in many of these mountain towns. It’s easy to get it wrong. Unlike major urban centers – which often operate under a perpetual supply deficit – you can’t just build and necessarily expect people to come.

  Revelstoke Mountain Resort, for instance, first opened in 2007 with grand aspirations of building one of the largest ski resorts in North America. But they got crushed in 2008 and have never fully recovered – at least relative to their original plans. Maybe the answer is a bigger airport.

  2018.02.17

• That’s a wrap

  

  Jackson Hole never disappoints. 

  The valley is this wonderful combination of cowboy town, expansive flat plains, wildlife, snowcapped mountains, challenging skiing and snowboarding, ‘mountain modern’ architecture, and twangy accents.

  One of the highlights of the trip was discovering a hot spring along the side of the Snake River. We never would have found it had it not been for a few locals. Apparently it’s called the “stinky spring.” 

  The setup was no frills — a bunch of rocks arranged as basins in order to catch the surprisingly steamy sulfur water. But the experience of sitting in the mountains and jumping between the icy river and hot springs was priceless. 

  That’s another great thing about ski towns: they change your perception of snow, winter, and the outdoors. When it snows in Jackson, people smile and grab their skis and snowboards. I aspire to bring that same energy to winter in the city.

  I could never be a ski bum, but I can certainly appreciate why others make that choice. Until the 10th annual…

  2018.02.11

• 9th annual

  Delta: “Final destination today?”

  Me: “Jackson.”

  Delta: “Ooohh, everyone is going to Jackson today!”

  Me: “That’s because they’ve been getting a lot of snow.”

  It’s that time of year again. I’m at the airport right now about to leave for my annual retreat to the mountains. 

  If you know me or you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll know that I’ve been doing this every year at roughly the same time for almost a decade. Next year will be our 10th “annual”, so that likely means we’ll have to ratchet things up a bit.

  Jackson Hole received 6″ of fresh powder last night and the weather forecast for this week is filled with even more snow. However, I think we may stay off Corbet’s Couloir. (Whatever you do, don’t click-through.)

  Regular scheduled programming will resume tomorrow. If you need to reach me, you know how. There never seems to be a good time to be out of the office, but traditions are traditions, right?

  2018.02.03

• Saying no to “Mountain Modern”

  

  Jackson, Wyoming is one of my favorite places on the planet. (Here is a ski/snowboard video that my friends and I made a few years ago in Jackson.)

  Earlier this year, Eagle Point Hotel Partners and the Brooklyn-based design firm Studio Tack completed a renovation of the Anvil Motel in Jackson – it’s now the 49-room Anvil Hotel. 

  Apparently reclaimed motels are the new hospitality trend.

  What I appreciate about their approach, is the emphasis on creating something that feels local and contextual. Here are a couple of snippets from Surface Magazine:

  The designers wanted to avoid a rustic feel, or what Ruben Caldwell, one of Studio Tack’s four partners and an avid backcountry skier, calls “Mountain Modern,” referring to architecture, common in places like Vail, Colorado, and Lake Tahoe, California, that excessively uses reclaimed wood and Cor-Ten steel. “We knew we didn’t want to steer anywhere near that,” says Chou, a long-time snowboarder who more recently got into skiing. “It takes a bit of familiarity with ski towns to know what you don’t want to do.”
  

  The vibrancy of Jackson’s local culture impressed the design team—and Caldwell so much so that he moved there full-time last year. “As a design team,” Caldwell says, “we’re hyper-aware of the need for projects to be deeply embedded into the local scene.”

  It’s easier to copy and paste. But the results are always better when you take a bit of time to understand a place. 

  Image: Anvil Hotel

  2017.08.13

• What I’m doing next

  

  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:

  

  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. 

  2016.07.20

• Snowboarding, vlogs, Cape Town, and marketing

  This morning, instead of my usual routine of writing alongside a cup of coffee, I decided to finally edit all of the skiing and snowboarding footage that I took last month in Park City, Utah. Click here for the final cut.

  

  Compared to the video we did for Jackson Hole, I don’t like the selfie perspective as much. It doesn’t show enough of the person. This time we used the Go Pro 3-way arm, but in Jackson we used a plastic tube that I think was used for a beer funnel before that. Next year we’ll go back to that.

  Video is a lot of fun and I would love to figure out a way to incorporate more of it into this blog. But that’s a far bigger time commitment and I am not prepared to allocate resources to that. I write every day. That’s my thing.

  I am, however, not ignorant to what’s happening in the world of video blogging. And I think there are lots of opportunities for businesses who have the resources to allocate towards projects like this.

  Take for instance this vlog by New York video guy Casey Neistat. It’s probably the best piece of marketing that the Phantom 4 drone could have asked for. It’s authentic. I watched it and now I want one. Take my money. 

  (Note to city geeks: It’s worth watching just for the drone aerials of Cape Town, South Africa.)

  

  To my knowledge, I don’t think people are doing anything like this in the real estate business. But eventually it will happen. Because people are becoming increasingly immune to your typical marketing pieces.

  2016.03.25

• Cities aren’t the only places struggling with housing affordability

  We already know that many successful cities are struggling with housing affordability. But what you may not know is that a similar phenomenon is happening in many ski towns. Supply is constrained and demand is high.

  Here is an excerpt from a recent New York Times article:

  Local officials and housing experts say it is a symptom of widening economic inequality, one that is especially sharply felt in tiny resort towns hemmed in by beautiful but undevelopable public land. While the wealthiest can afford $5 million ski homes and $120-a-day lift tickets, others work two jobs and sleep in shifts to get by.
  

  “It’s so much worse today than it’s ever been,” said Sara Flitner, the mayor of Jackson, Wyo., where the median single-family home price rose 24 percent last year to $1.2 million, according to the Jackson Hole Report.

  It’s for reasons like this that some ski towns have strict criteria around who is an eligible resident. For example, Banff, Alberta does this to ensure, “that housing remains available for those whose primary objective is to live and work in the community.”

  In small landlocked ski towns – where it’s difficult or almost impossible to increase supply – there are only so many options. 

  2016.02.01

• A cold ski town is building one of the first vertical farms in the world

  

  I have a soft spot for Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It’s a beautiful town and, out of all the places I’ve snowboarded, it’s easily my favorite.

  That’s why I was excited to learn that Jackson is currently building one of the first vertical farms in the world (and in a cold ski town at that). Using a vacant site in the middle of town, a new venture called Vertical Harvest is building a three storey, 13,500 square foot hydroponic greenhouse. It’s being done as a public/private partnership.

  

  The business will operate year round and supply fresh produce to the local community – replacing food that was previously being shipped in from Mexico and California. 

  The site itself is 1/10 of an acre, but it’s expected to have the same output as a 5 acre piece of land using conventional agriculture methods. 95% of their product is already committed through pre-purchase agreements. 

  Here are some of the businesses that have jumped onboard:

  • Rendezvous Bistro
  • Il Villaggio Osteria
  • Q Roadhouse
  • The Kitchen
  • Jackson Hole Mountain Resort’s five restaurants
  • Snake River Brewery
  • St. John’s Medical Center’s Refuge Grill

  What makes this project even more exciting is their commitment to employing members of the local community with disabilities. This is apparently a growing concern in Jackson, and so Vertical Harvest will be doing their part to address that.

  If you’d like to learn about the design of the facility, check out this article by Fast Company. The team was was very methodical in ensuring that this facility would consume less energy than the status quo of shipping in food from out of state.

  The go-live date is this fall (2015). I should probably plan another trip to Jackson.

  Images from Vertical Harvest

  2015.02.28

• Alleys and laneways

  In addition to having an incredible mountain just 12 miles away, the town of Jackson is also a really cool place in its own right. It’s a cowboy town with endless wilderness all around it. But since it’s such a big tourist destination, the town is filled with great restaurants, art galleries, and the obligatory real estate brokerages trying to sell vacation properties.

  Here’s what the town looks like from the top of Snow King (the in-town ski mountain). Photo credit: David Stubbs for the New York Times.

  

  But from a land use standpoint, I also find the town really interesting because of its network of fine grain alleys. Here’s a picture of Gaslight Alley. For those of you who are regular readers of this blog, you’re probably aware that I’m a big supporter of laneway housing in Toronto. I think it’s a hidden opportunity. It could be another—more intimate—layer to the city.

  Today, building a laneway house is virtually a non-starter with the City of Toronto. Whether it’s issues of utilities or the fact that laneways don’t easily accommodate service vehicles (maybe we need smaller service vehicles), the city has a litany of reasons for why they just won’t work.

  But I’m absolutely certain that we could figure out solutions to all of the obstacles if we really put our minds to it. It’s not a question of not being able to do it, it’s a question of not wanting to do it.

  2014.02.06