Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 396

Friday was a busy day at Junction House .

In the morning, we gave a hard hat tour to Toronto's City Planning Division. They are currently revisiting the Mid-Rise Building Performance Standards , and so this was an opportunity to see what these standards translate to when you're on site trying to actually build a mid-rise building.

It was great to see the group so highly engaged and looking for ways to improve the delivery of this housing typology. Thanks for taking the time to visit Junction House.

Then we had the "official lighting ceremony" for the placemaking art . And by official lighting ceremony, I mean that there were a handful of us playing around with a drone and trying to get cool pictures on our phones. However, did we have one actual videographer, so stay tuned for some proper video footage of the installation.

https://videopress.com/v/QcsJGPFo?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true

Finally, in the evening after sunset, we got to see it illuminated for the very first time. And it was everything we had hoped for! An idea turned into reality, many years later. Shout out to the Urban Toronto community for spotting one of our earlier prototypes online and then encouraging us to make some design changes. We are happy we listened.

But what do you all think? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below.

I am so impressed by The Well . I walked through it this afternoon after a meeting at BDP Quadrangle's office, and I think that once it's fully open and stabilized, it's going to become an instant icon and destination in the city of Toronto. So much so that when people visit Toronto, they're going to come to The Well to take a photo under its glass canopy. Just watch.

Right now, only a portion of it is accessible to the public and it's because there's a BMO bank branch on the lower level that is open and operating. It's all by itself right now, though, so if you bank with BMO, maybe pop by and say hello.

Now, if you're a naysayer, I would imagine you're probably thinking at least two things. You're thinking of the office space that Shopify left behind . And you're thinking that open-air malls maybe aren't well suited towards the Toronto climate. When our group walked through it today, Matt Young (of Republic Developments ) immediately said that it felt like something from California.

I don't really get this climate argument though. Mainly for two reasons: (1) because winter clothes exist and (2) because we have lots of other open-air malls throughout the city that are doing just fine. Except we don't call them open-air malls, we just call them streets. And the way they work is that people walk outside , and then go into various retail establishments.

On the office piece, well, you all know how I feel about office .

Congratulations to everyone involved in The Well. It is an accomplishment that you should all be very proud of, and our city is better for it. I look forward to seeing it continue to take shape.

My friend Randy Gladman , of Colliers Strategy & Consulting, recently published this important opinion piece in Urbanize Toronto. In short, it is about how little of our land we dedicate toward high-density housing (about 5%), what that results in, and why it should change:

TenBlock’s efforts are appreciated; more homes are desperately needed in Toronto, especially near transit. Intensification in all forms should be welcome. But there should be a better way to create the homes we need that minimizes demolition of the ones we have. We don’t have a shortage of low-density land near transit infrastructure in our city. Rather, we have a shortage of the political will needed to combat the calcified forces aligned against intensification. Looking at the development process in Toronto, we can see just how inefficient and confused our system of land planning has become when we consider how we treat low-density areas compared to the very small percentage of the city where greater density is accepted. 

I think there's growing awareness in this city and others about why this approach to land use needs to be modernized. And there is certainly positive change underway . But there's still work to be done. So I'm happy that Randy decided to write about it.

For the full article, click here .