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.
When you fall in love again, you don t think about the ex very much. —Travis Kalanick, co-founder of Uber, talking about how he feels about Uber today You d be forgiven for thinking that Travis Kalanick, co-founder of Uber, is back. Since leaving Uber heartbroken in 2017, he has been relatively quiet. But in his words, [ ]
Since we first opened bookings for Parkview Mountain House, we have been using a third-party property manager. This seemed to make the most sense given our team is not local. But since then, we have learned that, along with the fees charged by Airbnb and VRBO, it s simply too high a fee load. We also [ ]
There was once a time when Uber was heavily investing in autonomous vehicles and rides. Then that stopped in an effort to become profitable. But now, out of necessity, it s back. Uber recently announced that the company will invest $10 billion of capital over the coming years to bring AVs to market at scale. Uber s [ ]
It is a core belief of mine that design and brand equity create value in real estate. But to what extent is this true? And how much should a developer invest in these things? Is it worth spending a 3-5% licensing fee on a cool brand? Will the price premiums really be there? Here are [ ]
This week, my friend Bill, who is the founder of Gairloch Developments, took me through his Craft Residences project. Bill has done and is doing a number of beautiful projects in the Junction and Craft is one of them. When we met up on Dundas, I immediately complimented him on the project s use of green [ ]
I love to travel and I try my best to be efficient at it. Pre-kid, Bianca and I would leave for weeks with just two carry-on suitcases and a laundry event at some point in the middle of the trip. But now we re planning our first trip to Paris and Nice with Vivienne (she ll be [ ]
Last week, Globizen shared this 11-unit condominium project in Tokyo on Instagram. Some of you may like the design by Ryuichi Sasaki Architecture, and some of you may not. But regardless, it s an interesting case study in that the site area is only 152.27 square metres (or 1,639 square feet). The building footprint is 84.86 [ ]
I was in Montréal at the start of this year for work and I stayed at the Moxy Downtown. (I will, by the way, use any excuse to find my way to Montréal.) As I walked over to the hotel from the train station, I remember thinking to myself, Wow, this is a beautiful tower. [ ]
We often think of cities in terms of their built environment. This city has lots of futuristic tall buildings, this one has lots of ornate mid-rise buildings, and this one is mostly suburban sprawl. But the built environment is only one component. Underlying the physical environment (let s call it the hardware of a place) is [ ]
Kevin Yin frames the data centre debate eloquently in this recent Globe and Mail article: The backlash against data centres is understandable. But the answer is not to block construction. It is to design a better bargain. Here are some things we can say about data centres right now: Meaning, Canada is uniquely suited to [ ]