Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1380

As Architect This City continues to grow in readership, I’m starting to get pitched more and more. People email me with something they want promoted and they try and convince me to write about it. Everybody is looking for distribution. I get it.

I have no qualms about people and companies reaching out. In fact, I welcome the suggestions. But the vast majority of these “pitches” don’t make it onto ATC. 

When it comes to these sorts of things, I have two simple rules: (1) I have to like it myself. If I don’t think what you’re pitching is interesting or cool, I’m not going to write about it – even if you’re offering up money. (2) I need to be able to be transparent about it. More on this second point in the coming weeks.

Recently I was asked to do a post about the Fashion House Condos in Toronto’s King West neighborhood. 

Here’s why I decided to do it:

I like that the existing Silverplate heritage building was preserved and integrated into the base of the condo. It’s now tenanted to The Keg, which has gone into the base of a number of new condo buildings in the city. They’re a successful chain.

Each elevator lobby within the building has a unique mural designed by a different fashion designer – most of which are Canadian. The whole Fashion House theme is meant to speak to the area’s history as Toronto’s Garment District .

Many of the residential suites have red curtains (which are white on the interior). They form a “common element” and have to stay in the condo. It gives the building a dramatic and unique feel, though it means you have to be a fan of curtains.

My good friend designed the Mexican restaurant at the base of the building (Wilbur Mexicana). His firm is called Reflect Architecture .

It’s also an example of cool startup businesses going into the base of a new development . As far as I know, Wilbur Mexicana is the group’s first venture.

There’s a rooftop pool that I’m hoping somebody will invite me to this summer.

And finally, because I think the King West neighborhood is such a great example of urban renewal.

To end off, here are some stats on the project:

• Address: 560 King Street West, Toronto
  

• Developer: Freed Developments
  

• Architect: CORE Architects
  

• Project Timeline: 2008-2014
  

• Construction Costs: $60M (estimate)
  

• Site Area: 4,887 square meters / 52,603 square feet
  

• Gross Floor Area: 27,107 square meters / 291,777 square feet
  

• Floors: 11 and 12 storeys
  

• Building Heights: 33m and 39.7m
  

• Residential Suites: 334

And here are the fashion designers responsible for each elevator lobby mural:

• 2nd Floor – Beckermans
  

• 3rd Floor – Dean Davidson
  

• 4th Floor – Jeremy Laing
  

• 5th Floor – Adrian Wu
  

• 6th Floor – Jenny Bird
  

• 7th Floor – Ashtiani
  

• 8th Floor – Peach Berserk
  

• 9th Floor – Smythe
  

• 10th Floor – Jay Godfrey
  

• 11th Floor – Bustle
  

• Penthouse – Greta Constantine
  

What do you think of Fashion House?

Images: CORE Architects

Over the past few weeks I’ve been running a little experiment on Twitter where I tweet about a new development project in Toronto and I ask people to vote on it. If they like the project, I ask that they retweet (RT) it. And if they don’t like it, I ask that they favorite it (FAV).

Here’s what it looks like in tweet form:

https://twitter.com/AThisCity/status/575803932083032064

As you can see from this experiment, about 69% of the people who participated seemed to be in favor of this project (at least at the time of writing this post). That said, the discussion following this tweet was a lot more negative than I would have expected.

Somebody also pointed out that in my experiment I’ve created a bias towards supporting the project, since a retweet means the project gets shared, whereas a favorite doesn’t do that. I would argue that the more distribution the better for an accurate consensus, but point taken.

So today I thought I would do this same experiment here on Architect This City. 

At the bottom of this post, I’ve featured a comment from myself asking if you support the 1 Bloor West project. If you like the project, I ask that you “up vote” my comment. And if you dislike the project, I ask that you “down vote” it. You can do so by using the up and down arrows towards the bottom left of the comment.

Hopefully this hack will create a more neutral voting framework. I hope you will participate. If you’re reading this via email, you’ll need to open up the post in your browser by clicking “read more” at the bottom.

If you’d like to learn more about the project before voting, check out this article from the Globe and Mail . Happy voting!

A couple of days ago I wrote about a documentary series called Real Scenes . It’s a fascinating series that examines the electronic music scene in a bunch of different cities from New York to Berlin to Tokyo. 

What’s fascinating about these films is the inside look it gives you into how these “scenes” develop. Berlin, for example, is absolutely on fire right now. It has a thriving startup scene and a reputation for being a major force in the world of electronic music.

How did that happen?

The documentary leads you to believe that Berlin was able to establish itself as, arguably, the techno music capital of the world by having lots of empty buildings and nobody cracking down on squatters after the Berlin Wall fell. Quite literally, the scene appears to have started as a result of illegal techno parties being thrown in abandoned buildings. 

It’s a perfect and perhaps extreme example of Jane Jacobs’ famous line that new ideas require old buildings. The rents are simply too high in new buildings for anything experimental. Landlords naturally prefer to rent to triple-A tenants who will pay the highest rents. And who can blame them. 

But just like there’s tremendous value in incubating new startups before they’re even close to turning a profit, there’s obviously value in empowering new ideas, new concepts, new retailers, and new businesses to flourish within cities. 

I’m not exactly sure how that could be done in the context of new developments, but it’s on my mind right now as a result of some discussions I’ve been having with some incredibly smart and ambitious people in this city.

So today I’d like to turn it over to you. How could we make it so that new ideas flourish even in new buildings? Since investment naturally drives up rents, does that mean it will always put pressure on those crazy instigators who just need cheap space?