Construction is generally considered to be the world’s largest industry, and yet, it is well known that its productivity levels suck. Over the last half century, the industry has experienced something in between meager and negative productivity growth. It is for this reason that, for as long as I can remember, people have been trying to figure out how to turn development and construction into something more repeatable and less custom — something like a product. Now, there can be a bit of a stigma associated with this moniker. Architects don’t often like to think of their work as being a produc ..read more

Art in hospitals is such a good idea. The above photos are from Michael Garron Hospital, here in Toronto. One thing I have never understood is why so many hospitals look and feel depressing. (My mom is a nurse and so I was around them growing up.) I fully appreciate that utility is first and foremost and that construction budgets are always tight. But it strikes me that if there’s one place where you want the opposite of depressing, it is in the places where people go when they’re already not well. It also doesn’t necessarily need to cost more to be “not depressing.” A little creativity and c ..read more

One perfectly sound approach is to just be the cheapest. This often entails lower margins, but hopefully higher volumes. However, the problem with this approach is that it can become a race to the bottom. At some point, somebody will find a new corner to cut. As Seth Godin says, “the problem with the race to the bottom is that you might win.” On the other end of the spectrum is this approach: This is a pamphlet describing full ripeness mangoes from the Miyazaki prefecture in Japan. These are not the cheapest mangoes around. In fact, it’s the opposite; they’re generally known to be the world’s ..read more

Today is my forty-first birthday. I had aspirations of making it a slower day, but that didn’t really happen. I did, however, start my morning “on the Bench” for one of our development projects and that was pretty spectacular, especially with the weather we had. Today has to have been the nicest day of the year. I very much enjoy my birthdays, but the cadence of them seems to only speed up. It feels like just last month that I turned forty. And so in many ways, birthdays are a reminder to me that it’s important to be decisive and not waste time. Life keeps moving forward whether we like it or ..read more

So, Dubai has just announced that it will be building the largest capacity airport in the world at the site of its existing Al Maktoum International Airport. At an expected cost of approximately US$35 billion, the expanded airport is planned to have 400 gates, 5 parallel runways, 5 passenger terminal buildings, and capacity for up to 260 million passengers per year. To put this into perspective, Atlanta International Airport is currently the world’s busiest with nearly 105 million passengers last year. Dubai International Airport — their other and main airport — is second with just under 87 m ..read more

The Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area is expected to see 6,821 new rental homes completed this year. This is a “multi-decade high”, according to Urbanation’s latest rental report. Indeed, you need to go back to the 1970s to get rental supply figures of this magnitude. A big part of this has to do with the fact that we are now taxing rental housing less. Toward the end of last year, the federal government removed their portion of the HST on new rental housing and, then in November, the province of Ontario followed with theirs. This was “a big first step” for the industry, according to leading a ..read more

Last week we spoke about parking space dimensions. And my point was that these dimensions can dramatically change parking designs in new developments. In the comment section of this post, you’ll now find a number of examples of how these dimensions vary by city. But the reality is that cars do keep getting bigger — at least in this part of the world. In the 1970s, SUVs and trucks made up less than a quarter of new car sales in the US. Today, this number is greater than 80%. It has become the standard kind of car. So this week, let’s touch on why this has happened. One argument might be that t ..read more

If you want to understand a huge divide in Toronto and WHY people are so hyped about the Ontario Line look at the main transit project Toronto built in the 2010s (Eglinton Crosstown) vs. the main one for the 2020s (Ontario Line). Not to mention we needed the OL for decades! pic.twitter.com/2qoxT0dHfe — Reece (@RM_Transit) April 27, 2024 Sometimes I’ll hear people in Toronto talk pejoratively about all of the development that’s been happening at Yonge & Eglinton (in midtown). They’ll say it’s too much density. But then you come across charts like the ones above (source previously shared ..read more

Today, Rad Marketing and Blackline hosted their second annual “Ballin’ Out For Charity” basketball tournament. And it was a fantastic event. My sore lower back proves it. It’s always fun getting so many Toronto real estate people into one room (or onto a giant court at the University of Toronto). But more important is the fact that it was for a good cause. This year’s tournament raised money for the MLSE Foundation (which you can learn more about here). And last year’s tournament raised over $70,000 for the Daily Bread Food Bank. I’m looking forward to this becoming an industry staple. Everyo ..read more

This is a telling map from Jens von Bergmann. It shows the changes in population density across Toronto from 1971 to 2021 (measured in people per hectare). What is obvious is the spikiness of our city. We have been very effective at adding lots of people downtown, along the central waterfront, and in certain other pockets. But at the same time, we have let our older inner city neighborhoods move in the opposite direction and lose people. The irony of this outcome is that we have long created policies that refer to these areas as being “stable” neighborhoods. The idea was that they weren’t sup ..read more