Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1328

The world cannot find a cure for cancer soon enough. Earlier today Quadrangle Architects here in Toronto published the following news release. For those of you not from Toronto, Quadrangle is one of the most important architecture firms in the city.

It is with great sadness that we share with you that Brian Curtner, our co-founder, colleague and friend, passed away from cancer on August 15, 2015 at the age of 64.

As an architect, Brian has been widely recognized for exemplary designs that include the award-winning BMW showroom at the foot of the Don Valley Parkway, Corus Entertainment’s state-of-the-art headquarters on Toronto’s waterfront and 130 Bloor Street West in Yorkville – all innovative responses to complex urban challenges. Equally important to his projects was Brian’s unique ability to build long-term working relationships and turn them into friendships that spanned decades.

Balancing entrepreneurship and commitments to family and friends, Brian was instrumental in creating a highly successful architecture practice, combining business acumen with design excellence, technical expertise and client service which continue to define Quadrangle today.

Together with his family, we will honour Brian’s life and achievements with a memorial celebration in the near future. We will communicate more details as soon as arrangements have been finalized. In the meantime, Brian’s family welcomes donations to either the Temmy Latner Centre for Palliative Care at Mount Sinai Hospital or Sunnybrook Hospital’s Odette Cancer Centre , in his memory.

In the coming days, please visit our website for additional information. Details will also be available regarding a website being created in memory of Brian.

For any inquiries please connect with Elle Fitzpatrick .

Top image from Quadrangle’s Instagram ; bottom image from here .

Real estate is a local business. And this weekend in Philadelphia really reminded me of that.

Here’s what I mean.

The real estate story in Toronto is condos. We’re buildings lots and lots of condos. When my friend from Chicago recently visited Toronto for the first time, he told me that it feels very similar to Chicago, except that we have modern glass condo towers going up everywhere and they don’t. That’s our story right now.

Low-rise housing in Toronto is becoming increasingly unaffordable (the average price of a detached home is well north of $1M) and so high-rise condos are now what many people can afford. When young people in Toronto talk about buying their first place, that now usually means a condo.

But that’s not the story in Philadelphia.

In Philadelphia, you can buy a 1,600 square foot, 2 storey, 2 bedroom rowhouse in a respectable neighborhood for sub US$400,000. And in speaking with my friends in Philly this weekend, that’s what young people are buying.

This doesn’t mean that Philadelphia isn’t building new high-rise condos and apartments. It is. Obviously nowhere near as many as Toronto. But it is building. Far more than when I lived there before the Great Recession.

However, the condo market is typically more upmarket. The target market isn’t so much first time buyers and the mass market; it’s more people who want full floor apartments in Rittenhouse Square. (I’m exaggerating only slightly.)

Philadelphia is also building more rental towers than condo towers. (Rental has only recently become fashionable again in Toronto.)

I’m guessing that a lot of this has to do with the fact that Philadelphia draws in a lot of transient students and academics each year. In fact, the most noticeably changed area from when I lived in Philly was University City. That’s the area that houses the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University.

So there seems to be strong demand for new rental housing in the city. I’m told vacancies are very low. But when it comes time to buy, young people don’t look to condos like they do in Toronto. They are looking mostly to rowhouses.

This is interesting to me because it’s the exact opposite of Toronto. In Toronto, low-rise is expensive and so lots more people are buying high-rise. In Philadelphia, high-rise is expensive and so people are buying low-rise.

I guess that’s why they say real estate is a local business. What works in one city may not work in another.

It’s great to be back in Philly. I have a real sense of nostalgia around this city.

Last night my friends took me to a popup beer garden on South Street put on by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. Before the popup garden, it was just an abandoned lot.

There seems to be a real culture of beer gardens in Philly, which is something I don’t think we have in Toronto. Why is that?

Part of the reason, I think, is that there’s a greater spread between desirable and undesirable neighborhoods in Philly than in Toronto. And in the undesirable ones, urbanists have to work really hard to figure out ways to activate them.

So really these popup beer gardens are a lean urbanist intervention. It’s a way to draw people to an area and create awareness. And I’m told that often these popup gardens end up becoming development sites.

Because of this, these popup gardens are sometimes controversial within communities. They’re seen as a catalyst and precursor to gentrification. But that’s a whole other debate.

What I find interesting is this grassroots approach to city building. Great spaces don’t have to be expensive. Sometimes seating, lighting, and beer are all you need to bring people together.