Tag: toronto

• Tech and the North American office market

  CBRE recently published this report looking at the impact of the “high-tech software/services industry” on the North American office market. 

  Here are a few highlights:

  – Since 2010, tech has created ~1.1 million jobs in the US at an annual growth rate that is 3x the national average.

  – Seattle currently has the fastest tech job growth in North America. This is the first time in 7 years that San Francisco hasn’t been at the top of their list.

  

  – Silicon Valley, Toronto, New York, and Los Angeles all added more than 10,000 tech jobs from 2016 to 2017.

  – The biggest “momentum markets”, relying on 2016 and 2017 data, are Montreal, St. Louis, and Seattle.

  – Over the past two years (Q2-2016 to Q2-2018), Atlanta, Los Angeles, Orange County, Seattle, and Portland have all seen double-digit rent growth.

  One figure that also stood out for me was this one here showing the relationship between US venture capital investment and the average asking rent for office space in San Francisco.

  

  If you’d like to download the full report, click here. You’ll need to sign up for an account with CBRE, but it’s free to do that.

  2018.11.06

• World’s most diverse city-region

  For those of you who aren’t going to be in Toronto next week, you can stop reading now and check back tomorrow. For the rest of you, next week is The Future Cities Canada Summit, which will be taking place from November 7 – 9. Full schedule, here.

  Day 1 equals the Urban Land Institute Symposium 2018, which is all about Toronto urbanism. The tagline is: “Explore the urban frontiers of North America’s fastest growing, and the world’s most diverse city-region.” 

  A big part of day 1 will be bus tours around the city. And one of those tours is going to be focused on Toronto’s laneways. I am a speaker on that tour and the bus will be stopping at Junction House to talk about the laneway houses that we plan to release as part of the project.

  But there’s much more to this summit than just laneway housing.

  2018.11.01

• China has a lot of people

  Matt Daniels over at The Pudding recently visualized the world’s population in this spiky 3D map. You need to take a look. Better on desktop.

  The data is from 2015, but you can also compare it to and show the change from 1990.

  Here is the Greater Toronto and Hamilton region (16.8 million people reside in this screen grab):

  

  Here is the New York City region (55.4 million people reside in this screen grab):

  

  And here is China (1.054 billion people reside in this screen grab):

  

  I tried to capture both Shanghai and Hong Kong in this image. Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Shenzhen are currently in the mist of forming a 40 million-person megalopolis.

  If we pan back over to the northeastern United States and Central Canada – keeping the same scale as the above image from China – it looks like this:

  

  These last two images say a lot. 

  2018.10.27

• Plus atelier

  This morning I went through some of the floor plans for King Toronto, which are now up on BuzzBuzzHome. In case you’re wondering, they are currently showing an average price of $1604 per square foot.

  Here is a 1 bedroom + atelier:

  

  And here is a 2 bedroom + atelier:

  

  Right away you’ll probably notice a few things. 

  There are no dens in these plans. They have been replaced with ateliers, which sounds cool. I want my own atelier where I make things. But it may also be a clever way to get around calling them studies or nooks.

  A lot of people in the industry have been commenting on how they’ve included the exterior living space in the calculation of total area. That seems logical to me, especially for a project like this where the terraces form such an integral part of the architecture.

  The other thing I noticed is that the buildings are, actually, being referred to as mountains. This has been part of the project’s design narrative since the beginning. So I like the consistency. The above plans are for suites within the “east mountain.” 

  But what I wanted to ask all of you today is whether you find the addition of a 3D plan helpful. It’s obviously not new, but it is still fairly uncommon, at least in this market. Do you think it’s worth it?

  2018.10.26

• Toronto vs. Boston

  I worked late this evening, which is pretty typical these days. After I got home, I flipped on the Raptors vs. Celtics and sat down to write something about cities, as is the case every day.

  But the game was too close and too good to resist. The Raptors turned things around in Q3 and ultimately went on to spank the Celtics with a 10-0 run in the last few minutes of the game. It was sweet, particularly because Toronto and Boston are likely to end up at the top of the eastern conference this season.

  So needless to say, I spent more time watching basketball and less time writing about cities. But that’s okay because I am pretty excited about this year’s Raptors. Here are a few Kawhi Leonard highlights.

  2018.10.20

• A video and some art

  We made a video for our Junction House project. If you can’t see it embedded below, click here. You may have already seen some of the cut-downs on my socials, but this is the full version.

  [vimeo 293178524 w=640 h=300]

  The stickers under our projecting Junction House sign box irk me, but otherwise we’re all really happy with the way the video turned out. We wanted it to feel real and authentic.

  I am also thrilled to announce that we have partnered with a few local artists for this project. 

  The first is Leeay Aikawa. She is a multidisciplinary artist who moved to Toronto from Japan in 2003 and now works and resides in the Junction. We’re excited to have the opportunity to exhibit her work. You’ll find it in our “sales gallery” when that space opens.

  The next artist will remain a secret for now (though that’s a hint). Stay tuned to the blog and the socials.

  2018.10.11

• Unpacking the family condo

  John Lorinc has a piece in the Autumn 2018 issue of University of Toronto Magazine that is worth a read. It covers families in Toronto being priced out of the low-rise housing market and/or making the conscious decision to live in an apartment or condo.

  He raises an important question:

  The big question hovering over this generational transition is all about city-building, and whether increasingly dense metropolitan regions such as Toronto and Vancouver can figure out how to turn all those newly sprouted forests of highrises into true communities that are both affordable and appealing to the wide range of people who call these cities home.

  The reality seems to be that more people in this city – out of economic necessity and/or because of a lifestyle preference – are choosing to raise a family in multi-dwelling housing. I live in a condo and my neighbors are raising a child two doors down from me.

  I am sure that we will continue to see more of this and I am sure that we will get better at designing for families. We are trying to do our part with the 2-storey homes that we have incorporated into our Junction House project. 

  I would, however, like to respond to the underlying tone in the article that but for developers being stubbornly resistant to larger 3-bedroom apartments in this city, we would have a myriad of new condominiums filled with families.

  The reality is that there are market and structural forces (including cultural biases) that steer what gets built.

  There are affordability considerations. Larger condos cost more money than smaller condos. And that prices out many families, particularly if there are cheaper alternatives available in the form of low-rise housing. 

  The reason we appear to be at an inflection point today is because the cheaper alternatives are disappearing. (This of course returns us to the broader question of overall housing affordability.)

  There are also timing and financing considerations that likely create a supply-side bias. Most lenders require that a certain number of condo units be pre-sold before construction starts. 

  This means that, as a developer, you need people that can both afford what you’re selling and that are willing to buy three to five years out, and perhaps even longer. That can be difficult for many families.

  Lastly for this post, there’s the GST/HST New Housing Rebate in Ontario, which I have argued before on the blog could be incentivizing smaller suite sizes and could use a refresh for today’s home prices.

  All of this is not to say that we shouldn’t be designing for urban families and that we shouldn’t be focused on delivering more affordable housing to this and other cities. Those are two very important things.

  It is simply to say: there’s a lot going on here that needs to be unpacked. 

  2018.10.02

• Leading female architects

  Reed Kroloff has a noteworthy piece in the New York Times talking about how architecture is no longer just a ‘gentleman’s profession’. Though less than a third of AIA (American Institute of Architects) members are females, “offices led or owned by women are creating an ever-wider range of public buildings that address architecture and urbanism in new and invigorating ways”, says Kroloff.

  

  I am thrilled, but not surprised, to see Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang on the list (pictured above). Her firm is the design architect behind our One Delisle proposal. And I was also happy to see Magui Peredo of Estudio Macias Peredo on the list. She is based in Guadalajara and, if you aren’t familiar with her work, I recommend you check it out. I love the materiality of it.

  Image: New York Times

  2018.09.16

• Microsoft Canada moving to CIBC Square

  

  Today, Microsoft announced that it will be moving its Canadian headquarters from Mississauga to the new CIBC Square development that is currently under construction in downtown Toronto (and rendered above). 

  According to RENX, Microsoft will occupy 132,000 square feet across 4 floors in the first tower. Occupancy is scheduled for September 2020.

  I love this project. The design architect is WilkinsonEyre. And there’s going to be an elevated one-acre park spanning the rail corridor between the project’s two towers.

  But it’s also noteworthy because it is an example of a major suburban tenant deciding to relocate to a transit-oriented urban environment. (I have a post on this somewhere.) 

  Image: WilkinsonEyre

  2018.09.12

• Tridel unveils smart condominium in South Core

  

  A few weeks ago, Canadian developer Tridel unveiled its first “smart condominium” at Ten York – a recently completed 69 storey building in the South Core neighborhood of Toronto. Above is an archive photo of the building under construction. I chose this one because its siting between the Gardiner Expressway (left) and Harbour Street (right) is also noteworthy.

  Smart anything is one of those tech buzzwords that is, I know, starting to feel vapid. But Tridel has done some interesting things here with their Tridel Connect platform (a collaboration with SmartONE Solutions). And if you happen to also be in the business of designing and constructing multi-family buildings, I think you’ll find it to be a useful case study.

  At Ten York, you can now use your phone as a key fob. People buzzing up are shown to you on your wall pad so you can confirm identity. The suite entry doors use digital locks, which means you use an access code instead of a key. Additional codes can be created for family and friends or for service providers like dog walkers and cleaners. You’re also given a log of who has come and gone. And of course there’s an automated parcel delivery system.

  If you’d like to see all of the features in the live, I suggest you take a look at the “b-roll video” that was included as part of their press release. Tridel is excellent at implementing new technologies and I know that they frequently reserve test suites in their projects to try some of them out. This is a great thing for the industry and for consumers.

  Image: Tridel

  2018.09.09