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… Read More
If you happen to have made boatloads of money in crypto (which sadly isn’t me), one sensible thing you could do is put some of that money into luxury residential real estate. You know, to diversify your portfolio. According to this recent WSJ article, it… Read More
I was having coffee with a developer friend of mine this morning and we got onto the topic of asking a lot of questions. We joked that that’s what we do all day. Development projects happen because of teams of very smart people all working… Read More
I am moderating a panel at the Toronto Real Estate Forum later this year (it’s on December 2 to be exact). The topic is innovation in development. There is a great panel of speakers (more info here) and the plan right now is to cover… Read More
I was out for dinner this week with a group of real estate developers. And as you might expect, we spent the majority of the time talking about real estate and complaining about how long things take. But a good chunk of time was also… Read More
We have a running joke in our office about the manic nature of the development business. Sometimes you feel like you’re having the best day of your life and everything is clicking and moving forward. And sometimes it feels like you’re about to die (slight… Read More
Fred Wilson wrote a great post last month about leadership. In it, he compares what he calls visionary leadership to operational leadership. Here’s a snippet: I like to keep things simple and in my simple mind, leadership comes in two flavors, visionary leadership and operational… Read More
There are many development narratives that I don’t quite understand. (I’m thinking of Toronto, but you can probably replace Toronto with any number of global cities for this discussion.) One is the belief that our transit network is full and so no new development should… Read More
At the beginning of this month, Restoration Hardware announced that it was making a $105 million equity investment in a development project in Aspen, Colorado. When completed, the project will house what the company is calling their “first RH ecosystem,” which will include an RH… Read More
When I was in graduate school, my plan was to create a vertically integrated design and development company. I loved designing things and wanted to remain close to those sorts of details, but I had already decided that I wasn’t going to be an architect… Read More
BRANDON DONNELLY 