Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1498

Yesterday news broke that Target is opening a two-storey, 145,000 square foot store at the base of a new mixed-use development in Toronto’s emerging South Core neighborhood . The site is at the north east corner of York Street and Harbour Street. And the larger development, called Harbour Plaza , will include a 35 storey office tower and 2 residential condominium towers at 65 and 69 storeys.

Here’s the location map:

And here’s the site looking east from York Street:

This is going to be huge for Target. The amount of current and proposed density within a short radius of the site is mind boggling. In addition to Harbour Plaza itself, look at what’s planned for 1 Yonge Street .

Plus with Union Station next door, I dare you to try and find a better connected mobility hub in the region. Now all of a sudden that retail radius gets even bigger. I can easily imagine suburbanites picking up a few things before they hop on a GO train (our regional rail system) and head home.

As of right now, they’re also the only game in town, as far as big box stores in the central core are concerned. But I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a competitor emerge alongside the 1 Yonge project. The site is big enough for one and Walmart isn’t going to want to get shut out of the area.

My only hope is that, from an urban design standpoint, the project is able to enliven and give back to Harbour Street. Right now it’s an arterial road with really no redeeming urban qualities. But with the York Street off-ramp being relocated and the park underneath it being expanded, now is the time to really transform the area.

Let’s hope Harbour Plaza does that.

If you check out the “ What I read ” page that I recently added to Architect This City, you might notice a blog by Charlie Gardner called the Old Urbanist . I discovered it a few months ago (when he added ATC to his blog roll) and it’s good stuff.

Last week he posted this interesting piece comparing homeownership rates and house sizes in both Mexico and the US. His finding is that there’s a fundamental mismatch in America in terms of the size of housing and the size of households. One and two person households now represent more than half of the market, and are on the rise, and yet 40% of houses in the US have 3 bedrooms.

Because of this mismatch, he’s arguing that households are being poorly served by the US housing market and that it’s driving down homeownership levels. It currently sits around 65% , which is a drop from over 69% during the mid 2000s. Contrast this to Mexico, where there’s a greater number of one and two person households and the homeownership rate is 80%! Oh, and where only 6% of homes are financed using a mortgage .

So what the Old Urbanist is suggesting is that we need to embrace smaller homes. He doesn’t explicitly say it, but he mentions the opportunity to redevelop laneways and alleys, which many of you will know I fully agree with . It’s a great post and I suggest you have a read if this topic interests you.

Growing up, I had one of the best English teachers around. He was the kind of English teacher who would dim the lights, light incense and play Bob Marley in the midst of class. He had also previously taught in Jamaica, which might help to explain this behaviour.

I had him as a teacher in both elementary school and in high school. All in all, he probably taught me 3 or 4 years of English–excluding the fact that he was also the coach of my high school basketball team (which I was on).

But more than just being a cool guy, he drilled a number of important takeaways and life lessons into his students. Still to do this day I remember and try and follow them. And I know that many of my classmates do the same. So today, I’d like to share 3 of them with you.

1. Don’t say umm

We all say “umm” from time to time to fill in our sentences when we can’t think fast enough or we don’t know what to say, but it sounds awful. It also makes you sound indecisive and less clear about the message you’re trying to get across. 

If we ever said “umm” in class he would make us repeat our sentence again and again until we said it without saying “umm.” He would literally stand there saying: “Start again. Start again. Start again.”

Similarly, he wouldn’t allow us to say “like”, unless we were using it to truly express that something had the same qualities as something else. But if you just said like for no reason, he would say: “Is it like that or is it that?” Again, it’s about being clear and precise in your language.

2. Don’t use very

By using adverbs such as very and extremely, you’re taking the easy way out. There’s always a better word or way to convey your message. Don’t say you’re very tired; say you’ve reached a point of debilitating exhaustion. Better yet, make up your own word (he never said that). Very is boring, lazy and uninventive.

3. Just do it

When we used to ask him how long he wanted our essays to be, he would always reply with the same thing: “As long as a piece of string.” And when we initially asked him how long a piece of string was, he would then say: “Just do it.” That was his message over and over again to us: when in doubt, just do it. We eventually stopped asking.

At the time, I never really understood how profound this simple message was. Initially I thought he just wanted us to get on with things but, in fact, he was saying so much more. He was telling us to stop relying on others for direction. Stop following orders, and take initiative. Just do it. Poke the box, dammit .

I’ve had this post sitting in my draft folder for a few months now. I don’t often deviate from city related topics, but I wanted to put this one out there. So if you’re reading this Mr. Mott-Trille, umm, like, thanks so very much! :)