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.

Subscribe

Tag: river city

  • 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.

  • Making River City

    My good friends over at Urban Capital recently released a short film about the making of their River City project here in Toronto. (If you can’t see the embedded video above, click here.)

    For those of you who aren’t familiar, River City is a 4-phase development on the east side of downtown that was really the first project in what was known as the West Don Lands area. Urban Capital secured the right to develop the then government-owned lands in 2008 through a public tender process that was run by Waterfront Toronto.

    It’s a tricky and unobvious kind of site in that it’s surrounded by infrastructure and it came with a whole host of development challenges, including flood risk. But the team figured it out and River City has gone on to win a number of awards including the Ontario Association of Architect’s Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Design Excellence.

    River City is an important project for Toronto in that it dared to be different. It’s like no other project in the city, and I’m not just saying this because they’re my friends. I’m saying it because I want our city to be a global leader in architecture, design, and development, and to continue to push the envelope.

    River City did exactly that.

  • New Toronto architecture bike tour

    I have a friend visiting from Detroit this weekend. We went to architecture school together at Penn. But unlike me, he decided to become a full fledged architect.

    Not surprisingly, he wants to see some new Toronto architecture while he’s here. I say new because he has seen the classics. So I mapped out a short bike route this morning. It’s more or less a downtown loop that starts in the St. Lawrence.

    First we head west to the Queen Richmond Centre West by Allied Properties REIT (developer) and Sweeny&Co (architect). After that I’d like to show him the main drag of King West and point out two buildings by Saucier + Perrotte Architects and CORE Architects. I don’t think Unzipped Toronto is open yet.

    Next it is north to One Spadina Crescent – home of the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design. This is one of if not my favorite new building in the city right now.

    After that I figure we’ll cruise east along the Bloor bike lanes and look up at 1 Bloor East. Then it is back south to check out the River City collection by Urban Capital (developer) and Saucier + Perrotte Architects (they are getting good face time on this tour).

    Then we’ll do what every good new Toronto architecture bike tour should do and end with a drink on a rooftop patio somewhere. Maybe we’ll check out the Broadview Hotel. I like the neon in the lobby bar.

    If I missed anything critical, let me know.

    Photo by Tiffany Nutt on Unsplash

  • What’s with all the black houses?

    Author and professor Witold Rybczynski recently asked: “What’s with all the black houses that have appeared in recent years?” Black brick. Black paint. Blackened Timber. Lots of black.

    Alongside his post was an image of a “backcountry hut” by Leckie Studio Architecture + Design. I am adding a picture of the interior for completeness, but he only posted a picture of its exterior.

    Witold makes a great point about shadows, but when I read the post this morning I immediately thought to myself: Wow. What a beautiful cabin and what a beautiful setting.

    I like how the lighter carve out at the corner contrasts against the black. And because of this carve out, I assumed that the interior would have similar and lighter tones of wood. It does.

    At the same time, I thought of Urban Capital’s River City complex here in Toronto, which also features “black” as a prominent architectural expression. I am a big fan of these projects.

    So I guess it goes to show, once again, that beauty is really in the eye of the beholder.

  • Gray on gray on gray

    This past weekend was gorgeous in Toronto. I always love seeing the city come to life after the winter and last weekend was the first sign of that this year.

    Being the fair-weather cyclist that I am, I had the flat fixed on my single speed bike and I was ready to go by the weekend. I managed to test out the GoPro handlebar mount that I mentioned last week but, quite honestly, the footage was so jittery and bouncy that it made me nauseous to watch it. So I need to rethink my city geek filming strategy. 

    (Sidebar: GoPro needs to make it easier to turn their raw footage into content that is actually worth sharing.)

    Still, I had a good ride over to the new Canary District on the east side of downtown. The gates just recently game down, so I was itching to take a look at it. Here are a couple of photos to give you some context for the rest of this post:

    None of the retailers have moved in, so the area currently feels like Toronto post zombie apocalypse (to use a friend’s description of the neighborhood). But all of the bones are in place for an incredible downtown neighborhood.

    Here are some of my thoughts as I was riding around:

    The opening of this neighborhood repositions the Distillery District. Initially, the Distillery District struggled as a kind of island on the edge of downtown. But thankfully they stuck to their initial vision for the community and now they get the benefit of this new mixed-use anchor to the east of it.

    Trinity Street to the north of the Distillery District proper is a fantastic opportunity to not only extend the magic of the Distillery northward, but also “plug” the area into Front Street East, which is the primary east-west spine that connects the Canary District back to the downtown core. I hope we (the city, developers, and so on) take advantage of this.

    The Front Street Promenade running through the Canary District and connecting into Corktown Common (park) is going to be an absolutely magical urban space once the restaurants, cafes, and retailers open up. I can’t wait for this to happen. Live Work Learn Play has been orchestrating the retail component.

    Finally, why are all of the buildings gray? 

    Gray brick. Gray window wall. Gray spandrel panel. It’s gray on gray on gray. We’re playing into that boring Canadian stereotype here. I hope the subsequent developments introduce some wild colors. Although some red brick to tie into the Distillery District would work well too. The best nearby architecture (just to the north) is the River City complex by Saucier + Perrotte.

    Notwithstanding the gray, I’m super excited about the Canary District and I am generally bullish on the east side of downtown. If you’ve had a chance to visit, I’d love to also hear your thoughts in the comment section below.