Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1390

morning fog by Familie Pinksterbos on 500px

Today’s Architect This City post is being brought to you live from the mid-base lodge at Revelstoke Mountain Resort on Mount Mackenzie in British Columbia. 

It’s currently foggy, rainy, and about 2 degrees celsius — which I’m told is fairly anomalous for this area. It’s unfortunate for my friends on the slopes, but it makes me feel somewhat better about hanging out all day to rest my back and shoulder .

The town of Revelstoke was founded in the 1880s when the Canadian Pacific Railway connected the area. And traditionally its economy has been closely connected to that rail. However, with amenities like the resort I’m currently sitting in, its economy now increasingly includes tourism.

One of the most interesting reminders for me on this trip through the Canadian Rockies is how instrumental rail was in unifying and then building this country. But in actuality, it wasn’t just rail. It was rail plus property.

Within the Canadian Pacific Railway was a division called Canadian Pacific Hotels , which built and operated both urban and rural hotels such as the Banff Springs Hotel and the Chateau Lake Louise  (both of which I visited for the first time on this trip). And today, these railway hotels are absolutely some of Canada’s most inspiring landmarks.

The model at the time was simple. 

Sir William Cornelius Van Horne — who was president of CPR in 1888 — believed: “If we can’t export the scenery, we’ll import the tourists.” He knew that it was all about moving as many people as possible. And to do that he needed to create accommodations and destinations all along the rail. In other words, rail alone wasn’t going to cut it. It had to be rail plus property.

This of course is a model that still persists today. Many public transit authorities, such as the MTR in Hong Kong , have been hugely successful by adopting a rail plus property model.

However as the case study of the Canadian Pacific Railway demonstrates this is not a novel approach. It’s actually a tried a true model. Rail, and infrastructure in general, goes really nicely with property development. 

So why don’t all transit authorities adopt a rail plus property approach?

I’m writing this post from the Lakeview Lounge at the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise. The view of the (frozen) lake and mountains is absolutely stunning (see above). I can totally see why people move to the Rockies and never leave. Frankly, I’m not sure how I’m going to ever go home ;)

This Chateau was first built up in the late 19th century by the Canadian Pacific Railway. Developed as a way to encourage ridership and fund railway expansion, its position on the eastern edge of Lake Louise was probably a fairly obvious choice (although only when accompanied by rail). It’s designed to take full advantage of the views of the lake and the mountains.

Chateau Lake Louise ~ by Carmen Brown on 500px

But it’s not always this easy to predict or select where development should happen and will happen next.

Yesterday I was quoted in a Torontoist article talking about the rise of Dovercourt Village  in Toronto – which is a topic I covered here on ATC about a month ago.

The interesting thing about Dovercourt Village – and specifically Geary Avenue – is that they seem like unlikely places for new investment. Many of the buildings aren’t particularly beautiful. And there’s a rail line and a set of power lines running through the middle of it.

But if the buzz around Dovercourt Village proves to be true, then it could very well end up as a new yuppy enclave in the city. I’m not going to debate the merits of gentrification today, but I think it’s interesting how change can seemingly emerge out of nowhere.

If you rewind 10 years to before Ossington Avenue became the hotspot that it is today, many of you would have probably classified it as an unlikely place for gentrification. Located beside the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), the area wasn’t considered desirable at the time. (CAMH has since undergone a lot of change.)

But oftentimes change can come out of nowhere. It just takes few enterprising pioneers who see something that nobody else does.

I have good news and bad news.

The bad news is that I took a gnarly spill yesterday afternoon on the mountains. The nose of my snowboard got stuck in deep snow and I fell forward onto my shoulder and then compressed my back. I tore a shoulder ligament and possibly fractured two ribs. So snowboarding season is over for me this year.

The good news is that I now have more time to relax and enjoy the town of Banff, and then Revelstoke this weekend.

Banff is a beautiful town. It’s compact, walkable, and surrounded by snow capped mountains. How could you not love it?

One of the more subtle things that stands out for me though is the ubiquity of second level retail and restaurants. There’s a lot people in the (North American) real estate industry that will tell you that second floor retail just doesn’t work (you want ground floor). And indeed, it can be hard to pull off. As I’ve said before, getting retail right in general can be difficult.

But in Banff, many of the bars and restaurants are up top. Here are a few examples (there’s an Earls, Boston Pizza, and a Korean restaurant, respectively):

So why does it work here?

Given the town’s small footprint and location within Banff National Park , the market is supply constrained. That’s why Parks Canada imposes a number of restrictions on residency. They’re trying to ensure that the people who actually work in the community can find housing and it all doesn’t become second homes.

So my gut tells me that in order to get enough retail/commercial space to serve the area and its tourists, they had no choice but to go up. They simply ran out of ground floor space. Because if the town was able to instead sprawl outward, I suspect that’s exactly what it would have done. And then more ground floor space would have been created.

To be fair, most of the second floor examples I came across were bars and restaurants, which is arguably easier to pull off than straight retail. But it’s still something. 

If any of you are familiar with real estate and planning in Banff or just have a better hypothesis, I’d love to hear from you in the comment section below.