Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 601

It was recently announced that Amazon plans to start opening large brick-and-mortar retail stores that are akin to department stores. They won't be quite as big. Supposedly they will be around 30,000 square feet. But this is still a meaningful commitment to physical retailing. The first stores of this type are expected to be in California and Ohio.

On the one hand, this move probably appears counterintuitive. I mean, Amazon is a machine built around e-commerce (though it does already have other physical stores). But on the other hand, you could argue that they are simply following a retailing playbook that was developed over a century ago by companies like Montgomery Ward and Sears.

Both of these companies disrupted traditional retailing in the late 19th century through mail-order catalogues. Why pay for physical space when you can just mail people catalogues? (Your margin is my opportunity, right?)

But as we know, eventually these mail-order catalogue businesses turned into brick-and-mortar stores, and they then thrived this way for many years. If you consider e-commerce to just be the 21st century equivalent of the mail-order catalogue, then perhaps this next move by Amazon was always destined to happen.

Next to the St. Lawrence Market (here in Toronto) is an appropriately named street called Market Street . It is a lovely street -- perhaps one of the nicest in the city. It's old and historic and it was completely redone several years ago ( evidence here ) with nice unit pavers, bollards, a curbless design, and seasonal restaurant patios.

In the winter months, the restaurant patios are packed up and additional parking is added to that side of the street. It was designed to be adaptable and in my experience it seems to be working quite well.

Right now the local Business Improvement Area is running a pilot project to see what this street might be like if it were to be pedestrianized. It was closed to vehicles this past weekend and the same will happen this upcoming weekend. Here's a photo of what that looked like on Saturday:

It's not perfect. A number of people commented on Twitter that the seating needs some shade. But hey, it's a pilot project. It is about giving people a taste of what the future could be.

I am a fan of pedestrianized streets in the right locations and when executed well. And I think this stretch of Market Street is a perfect candidate. It's already pedestrian-only to the north of Front Street and it has the right kind of "edges" to ensure that it can be properly animated.

If you feel the same way, I would encourage you to fill out this short survey that the St. Lawrence BIA has put out. I would also be curious to hear your thoughts on pedestrianized streets in general. Leave a comment below.

When I was a lot younger and growing up in Toronto, the place to go out at night was in the Entertainment District, centered around Richmond St West and Adelaide St West. This is where all of the bars and clubs were. Thinking back, the concentration of nighttime activities in this area was pretty incredible.

Those of you who are familiar with Toronto will know that this area isn't the same nighttime epicenter that it once was and that it's been this way for many years. The scene shifted westward and down to King St. It also went from larger clubs and venues to smaller bars, restaurants, and lounges. Tastes change, I guess.

So if you had to choose one intersection to be the epicenter of nightlife in Toronto right now, I think you could easily argue that it's King St West and Portland St . (Disagree with this take? Leave a comment below.)

But why this intersection? Why did the nighttime economy land right here?

Part of it was surely development pressures in the Entertainment District, which forced a broader move. I also think that these areas tend to become victims of their own success. Clubs and bars generate a lot of noise and that makes some people grouchy.

But I think you could also argue that the intersection of King and Portland has some very specific urban qualities that lend itself to becoming a kind of heart for nightlife.

It helps that it is the only north-south street that intersects King between Bathurst and Spadina. However, I think the more important point is that both Bathurst and Spadina are fairly broad arterial avenues (certainly that is the case for Spadina). These intersections aren't as hospitable to pedestrians and so they create a natural break in "the strip."

The result is that Portland, which is a much smaller street, became the heart. The intersection feels much more like an urban room. Leave one bar and another one is right in front of you. That's one of the things about cities. Intimate spaces, rather than big ones, are often what attract people.