Negotiating leverage is everything
Back in the fall of 2006, almost twenty years ago, Sam Zell's Equity Office Properties Trust announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Blackstone Real Estate Partners, in a transaction valued at approximately US$36 billion. This was a massive deal at the time, so much so that Sam Zell would later come to the University of Pennsylvania, where I was in grad school at the time, to talk to real estate students about how smart he was. The transaction closed in 200...
Negotiating leverage is everything
Back in the fall of 2006, almost twenty years ago, Sam Zell's Equity Office Properties Trust announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Blackstone Real Estate Partners, in a transaction valued at approximately US$36 billion. This was a massive deal at the time, so much so that Sam Zell would later come to the University of Pennsylvania, where I was in grad school at the time, to talk to real estate students about how smart he was. The transaction closed in 200...
Alex Honnold is about to free solo Taipei 101
My palms are sweating as I write this post, because even the thought of someone free soloing a skyscraper makes me clammy. (Free solo means climbing with no ropes.) But that's what climber Alex Honnold is scheduled to do live, on Netflix, on January 23, 2026, at 8 PM ET. He will be climbing Taipei 101, which is over 500 meters tall, one of the tallest buildings in the world, and formerly the world's tallest. Dubai's Burj Khalifa stole this superlative in 2009 when it was completed. My palms c...
Alex Honnold is about to free solo Taipei 101
My palms are sweating as I write this post, because even the thought of someone free soloing a skyscraper makes me clammy. (Free solo means climbing with no ropes.) But that's what climber Alex Honnold is scheduled to do live, on Netflix, on January 23, 2026, at 8 PM ET. He will be climbing Taipei 101, which is over 500 meters tall, one of the tallest buildings in the world, and formerly the world's tallest. Dubai's Burj Khalifa stole this superlative in 2009 when it was completed. My palms c...
Who says buildings need stepbacks?
Brandon Donnelly @donnelly_b Who says buildings need stepbacks? 613 9:37 AM • Jan 18, 2026 I recently tweeted a photo of 701 Côte de la Place-d'Armes in Montréal and asked: Who says buildings need stepbacks? The response was exactly as I expected. Modern planning, as you know, is obsessed with setbacks, stepbacks, angular planes, shadow studies, sky view, and lots of other things that inform the overall massing of new buildings. But then you point out a building like 701 Côte de la Place-d'Ar...
Who says buildings need stepbacks?
Brandon Donnelly @donnelly_b Who says buildings need stepbacks? 613 9:37 AM • Jan 18, 2026 I recently tweeted a photo of 701 Côte de la Place-d'Armes in Montréal and asked: Who says buildings need stepbacks? The response was exactly as I expected. Modern planning, as you know, is obsessed with setbacks, stepbacks, angular planes, shadow studies, sky view, and lots of other things that inform the overall massing of new buildings. But then you point out a building like 701 Côte de la Place-d'Ar...
Thoughts on the new Deer Valley Four Seasons
Spoiler: It's not for me
Stand with crypto
If you're looking for strong evidence that crypto is entering the mainstream, here it is:The cryptocurrency and banking industries are locked in a lobbying battle over digital tokens that yield annual payouts, a fight that threatens to derail legislation intended to bring crypto into mainstream finance. The two sides are clashing about what crypto firms call rewards, or annual payments to investors based on a percentage of their total holdings. They are commonly used for stablecoins, popular ...
Stand with crypto
If you're looking for strong evidence that crypto is entering the mainstream, here it is:The cryptocurrency and banking industries are locked in a lobbying battle over digital tokens that yield annual payouts, a fight that threatens to derail legislation intended to bring crypto into mainstream finance. The two sides are clashing about what crypto firms call rewards, or annual payments to investors based on a percentage of their total holdings. They are commonly used for stablecoins, popular ...
