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: the junction

  • Urban families

    We are getting ready for first occupancies at Junction House and it is exciting to see how many young families — with children — are looking forward to moving into the building’s larger 2-storey suites. (These are the suites that gave the project its name — Junction House.)

    From the outset, this was always a part of our development thesis. You can’t, or at least it’s very difficult, to pre-sell an entire building of larger suites in Toronto. But we figured that in a submarket like the Junction, which is very popular with young families, that there had to be some buyers who would want a house-like residence.

    Meaning, two floors of living spaces, upstairs bedrooms (better acoustic separation), larger living spaces, and a terrace for BBQing and gardening, among other things.

    We are now seeing this play out with the wonderful people coming in for their pre-delivery inspections, and it’s a really nice thing to see. Not only as a developer, but as a dedicated urbanite and lover of Toronto. I am not suggesting that it’s for everyone. But clearly there is a segment of the market that wants this.

    For a list of available homes at Junction House, including floor plans and pricing, click here.

  • Toronto’s next best photo-op is in the Junction

    Today is a travel day, so I don’t have a whole lot to say. But BlogTO did just publish a story about our Junction placemaking sign: “This intersection is set to become Toronto’s next best photo-op.” I am also happy to report that the sign’s timer has now been installed, which means that, starting today, it will get illuminated each night from sunset to 11PM. (We’re required to shut it off at this time because, you know.)

    So far the response has been overwhelmingly positive. And I truly hope that this installation will become a symbol for the Junction neighborhood. This was our sole purpose for pursuing it. It would also be ironic if something that was so difficult to get approval for ends up being loved by city. Perhaps it’s a lesson that stubbornness can be a good thing when you believe in something.

  • Toronto’s longest running fashion week

    This past weekend we went to check out Fashion Art Toronto.

    I’ll be honest and say that I had never heard of it before we bought tickets. Even though technically, it is the longest running fashion week in the city because of Toronto Fashion Week getting briefly cancelled in 2016, when its corporate sponsor pulled out. I also had no idea that Peter Freed, of Freed Developments, ended up purchasing the TFW brand later that year. I have been told he talks about it on this episode of Toronto Under Construction, but I haven’t had a chance to listen to it just yet.

    Getting back to FAT (the acronym is deliberate), it was a cool event. There were of course various runway shows throughout the day and evening, but there were also a few art installations and a retail area for local designers (see below). Tricon Residential and Kronenbourg 1664 Blanc were major sponsors, and were giving out popcorn and beer. And in general, the crowd was dressed in ways that made me feel both old and stuffy. It was a lot of fun.

    It was also in a warehouse in the Junction. Well, technically I think the neighborhood is called Harwood. But if you’re even remotely close to the Junction nowadays, it is vital that you just assimilate. That’s how this stuff works. As soon as a neighborhood has a successful brand, its boundaries get invariably stretched in every way possible. I suppose this is the Darwinian world of urban neighborhoods. There is always a chance that you may not make it and you might just get absorbed by a neighboring faction.

    I would also add that a lot of creative uses in need of space — whether it’s a fashion show or a DJ event — seem to be gravitating towards this northern part of the Junction. If you see an event location that says “undisclosed warehouse”, chances are it will be here. This is, of course, another naturally occurring urban phenomenon. It is the whole “new ideas require old buildings” thing, which really just means that new ideas require cheaper rents. And generally, it is a good positive leading indicator for an area.

    Having said all this, I do think there’s a lot of room for Toronto to step up its commitment to fashion and the arts. This is not a world that I live in, and I am not criticizing the good work of Fashion Art Toronto or Toronto Fashion Week. I just think that for a global city of our size and influence, we should be much better. I saw some of this city’s ambition, talent, and diversity in a warehouse in the Junction this past weekend. It’s just too bad that it’s not on stage for the rest of the world to see.

  • Junction House just got its placemaking art

    Today was a fantastic day for the development manic meter. This was finally installed at Junction House:

    If you happen to find yourself in the area, check it out at 2720 Dundas Street West. And if you’d like to know a little bit about how this placemaking art came to be, click here.

  • Two-way, all-day regional rail

    Neat B and I had a very good friend’s 40th birthday dinner in the Junction this evening.

    So naturally, we walked over to the UP Express station from our offices in the Financial District and took the train one stop to Bloor Street. When we got off — along with everyone else who uses our airport link as a regional express train — we then walked the West Toronto Railpath up to the restaurant on Dupont Street. All in all, it took us about 35 minutes. We hopped on the 5:30PM train and we arrived at Lucia around 5:50PM.

    I know that a lot of people use this particular train to get to and from work, but I’m always so happy whenever I do it. I will take this over being stuck in traffic every day of the week. And for me, it is a powerful reminder of just how critical “two-way, all-day regional rail service” is to this urban region. We can talk all we want about better traffic signals, ramping up enforcement, or whatever, but the real solution to solving traffic congestion is getting people moving in other ways.

    Anyway, I digress. Here’s a photo of the delicious pasta we had:

    Happy birthday Philip!

  • High Park vs. Central Park

    This compare-and-contrast tweet between Toronto’s High Park and New York’s Central Park was not meant to suggest that New York is a perfect comparable to appropriate (Toronto is not New York), or that foliage isn’t important in our urban environments. Instead, it was meant to highlight that:

    • The towers north of High Park (and north of Bloor Street) could almost certainly never be built in today’s planning environment. The recently built point towers exist because the slab towers were already there.
    • This condition of height/density tucked and setback off of main streets is something that you will find across Toronto, as well as in a number of other cities.
    • Sometimes it can be rightly argued that this is being done in order to preserve a fine-grained and pedestrian-scaled public realm, which is important. But in other cases, like the one above, it feels like a clear reluctance to accept big-city status and any sort of urban grandeur. Are we still trying to be a Victorian city?
    • Equally important in the design of public spaces are the edges and “walls” that frame it. And High Park’s edges need work. Why is there almost nowhere to go and hang out on the main edge of Toronto’s principal urban park? You have to go up to the Junction for that.
    • In general, the land around many of our higher-order transit stations is grossly underutilized. And this is a perfect example of that. What should happen here are some large-scale upzonings.

  • The 12 best design districts around the world

    Architectural Digest has just published the perfect article for gratuitous self-promotion. It is a list of “the 12 best design districts around the world”, and it includes The Junction, here in Toronto:

    Located in a tree-lined historic area of the city, The Junction gets its name for its past as the heart of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Mix with locals on the main drag of Dundas West at boutiques including the minimalist homeware store Mjolk and modern stationery shop Take Note. A short 20-minute walk from this charming retail center, the Museum of Contemporary Art is worthy of a stop in too. (Current exhibitions include a site-specific commission by artist Sarah Badr and Seeing the Invisible, an augmented reality experience in the museum’s Jerusalem Botanical Gardens.) Then take a tipple at The Junction Brewery, which serves local craft beers within an Art Deco building that offers a glimpse of the neighborhood’s rich history.

    Early on in high school, I used to come downtown to primarily do two things: skateboard and walk Queen Street. This was the street. It was weird and artsy and we loved it. And so we would start at University Ave and walk west for as long as the street was interesting.

    For a period of time, it felt like things kind of fell off after Spadina Ave. So we would often stop there. But then west of Spadina started getting cool and interesting too.

    Years later in 2004, the Drake Hotel would open up on what felt like a far off location on Queen Street. And then seemingly overnight, all of Queen Street was cool. Parkdale had a taco place with absurdly long lines and loud hip-hop music, and cool started moving up Ossington Ave, presumably because Queen had run out of space.

    Of course, neighborhoods have cycles. Before it was the Drake Hotel, it was Small’s Hotel. And when it opened in 1890, it was located in one of the wealthiest areas of Toronto. Then the area became a lot less wealthy, and eventually the hotel became a flophouse, before once again becoming cool again. These are the cycles.

    There is no doubt that Queen Street remains one of the greatest streets in Toronto. But in my mind, 2018 was a turning point. This is when when the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) left Queen and moved to the Junction Triangle (or the Lower Junction, or just the Junction, depending on what you prefer to call it).

    This to me didn’t signal that Queen had in any way peaked. Far from it. But I think it did solidify the Junction as one of Toronto’s next cool and artsy neighborhoods. And now here we are with Architectural Digest calling it one of the best in the world.

    It would be hard for me to be more biased. But I’m a big fan of the Junction. And I am really looking forward to erecting our placemaking art later this year. It is one of the things that our team is most proud of, and we proposed it simply because we thought it would be cool and interesting. That’s important.

  • On-street EV charging stations are the next street light

    On-street electric vehicle charging points are starting to roll out across Toronto. Here is one that I came across this morning in the Junction on Annette Street. The stations are from Flo.

    At its core, this is, of course, a great thing. Ubiquitous charging points are a critical component of overall EV adoption. But at the same time, it was a good reminder that (1) above-grade electrical wires are ugly (this is the typical Toronto approach) and that (2) on-street EV charging is a design challenge that is going to need to be solved.

    In the above example, the charging stations were mounted to an existing electrical pole and two bright yellow bollards were installed on either side to make sure nobody smashes into said charging stations while they’re parking and/or trying to watch TikTok videos on their phone.

    But what happens when nearly everyone has an EV? There are only so many electrical poles, so we will need to move on to standalone stations at some point, and that is obviously already being done. But if we’re going to have charging points practically everywhere, how should they work and what should they look like?

    I am sure that lots of very smart people are already thinking about this. But as someone who is not directly involved in this space, it feels like we need to think about these in a similar way to street lights. Because they are going to be just as ubiquitous, if not more so. That means there is a strong cause for making them both functional and beautiful.

    In fact, this feels like a real city branding opportunity.

  • Cycling to the office

    Right now my typical morning commute consists of a 15 minute walk and a quick stop off for a coffee. I must admit that I’m spoiled. But next year I’ll be moving to the Junction and so that means I’m going to need to make some minor adjustments to my routine.

    I fully expect that on warm summer nights I’ll probably still walk home on occasion. But broadly speaking, my loose plan is a combination of cycling, e-scootering, and taking the Union Pearson Express train.

    Then this evening I was out for drinks with one of our partners and two of the guys were talking about how they cycle to work each morning and compete on Strava to make sure everything gets properly logged. One of them actually lives near the Junction and his regular route is down through High Park and then across along the lake.

    Naturally I got inspired and decided — after two beers — that I too should join this competition. So I have now obligated myself to cycling to the office starting next year. That said, I could probably use a new bike, and I’m hoping that some of you will have recommendations.

    My criteria is as follows: it should look impossibly cool, it should work for a daily commute, and it should be at least somewhat suitable for tight-fitting clothes and long rides through the French countryside (even though I currently have no concrete plans of doing such a thing).

    Any thoughts?

  • Looking south toward High Park

    What a beautiful day in Toronto. I love the heat.

    I took the above photo this morning from the 7th floor of Junction House. It is a view south toward High Park. More specifically though, it is the view from the second and upper floor of what will ultimately become suite 607 (a suite that happens to be still available for sale).

    Now that the building is almost topped out, I’m planning to run through a bunch of the suites with my camera and photograph all of the different views. I don’t think I’ve seen something like this done before and I think it could be a pretty cool little photography project.