Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1181

I toured 56 Leonard Street in New York today. The only picture I have on my phone is the above photo of the lobby. The rest of the photos are on my Fuji and so they’ll make their way to my Instagram over the coming days. 

There’s lots that has already been said about the architecture of 56 Leonard, but one thing I wanted to point out was this idea of a “total work of art.” The German word for this: Gesamtkunstwerk. I’ve written about this before, here .

With many/most development projects, there will be a separate architect and a separate interiors firm. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this approach, but it could lead to a disconnect between the exterior and interior. Or at least, some architects will tell you that.

In the case of 56 Leonard, the architect ( Herzog & de Meuron ) also designed all of the interiors – right down to the kitchens, the sinks and tubs, the light fixtures, and likely a few other things. Hence the “total work of art.”

It’s incredible to see what happens when you have one design sensibility brought to an entire project. 56 Leonard is beautiful. For the rest of the photos, make sure to follow me on Instagram .

In case you’re wondering, the condo prices in the building run between $3,500 and $5,000 psf. One of the penthouses recently sold for USD$47 million.

This morning on my way into the office I ran into a friend who lives in my building (downtown). She works in midtown and so I asked her how she gets into the office. She told me that she either takes the subway or an Uber, but that increasingly she has been taking Uber, particularly on the way home.

We then started talking costs and she told me that what she does is carpool with a friend from work using UberPOOL. They live nearby and so what they do is leave from the same place at night (the office) and then select a midpoint location between their homes for the drop-off. After splitting their portion of the fare, the ride costs her about $3.25.

As she was telling me this, I couldn’t help but think to myself: Wow, this is massively disruptive to transit. That is the same cost as taking the subway . So why take transit? With the subway, there may be a speed argument in certain instances, but that certainly wouldn’t be the case with some of Toronto’s streetcar lines (such as the King line). It’s faster to walk.

However, there are obviously geographic limits to how far you can go in an UberPOOL before your costs greatly exceed taking transit. But as Uber and other similar services continue to bring down the price of a ride (eventually the labor cost component will disappear), how big does that area get?

All of this – including my own mobility patterns – has got me thinking yet again about the role of transit in the city of tomorrow. 

One segment that continues to be underserved is the regional scale. Here in the Greater Toronto Area, we are working on that by transforming our commuter rail service into a two-way all-day Regional Express Rail service. Today that strikes me as being hugely valuable. And unless driverless vehicles somehow solve our traffic problem, it will likely remain that way.

I would love to get your thoughts in the comments below.

We talk a lot about the greenbelt here in Toronto. Some argue that it’s squeezing the housing market and driving up prices.

But what about the yellowbelt? (Credit to Gil Meslin for the term.)

Here is a land use map of Toronto:

The yellow areas are “neighborhoods.” They, along with parks, ravines, watercourses, and valleys, make up ¾ of the city’s land area. The Official Plan describes these areas as being “stable” – meaning they will see little physical change. Supply cannot adjust to demand.

I get why this is the way it is and I understand how difficult it would be change something like this. But let’s not ignore the impact that this land use constraint has and will continue to have on the housing market. 

It’s the yellowbelt. Thank you Gil for letting me to steal the name.