Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 805

For the same reasons that I liked the Interlock in London , I am a big fan of this storefront in Amsterdam by UNStudio . It is contextual, but it also something entirely new. To me, it resembles a triptych of curtains being pulled to the side, which is probably a fitting metaphor for a high fashion street. The developer is Warenar and it looks like the space is still available. So if you're in the market for a retail storefront on Amsterdam's PC Hooftstraat, here you are.

Photos by Evabloem

Today we setup our construction webcam for Junction House . Here is a screenshot from this afternoon:

As you can tell, Mitchell Demolition is now on site. They still have some work to do inside the existing buildings, but after that everything will be coming down.

If you'd like to take a look at the public live feed, click here . It will also be available (embedded) on junctionhouse.ca in the next week or so.

Thank you Notion for letting us setup on your rooftop. If you aren't familiar with Notion, check them out here . They make custom apparel and other cool stuff right in the Junction.

Using data from Turner & Townsend, Curbed recently reported that the most expensive city in the world in which to build is now San Francisco. On average, it costs USD 417 per square foot. San Francisco is followed by New York ($368 psf), London, Zurich, and Hong Kong. New York took the top spot last year, but San Francisco shot up this year because of, you know, tech.

This number was calculated using a blend of six different types of construction , everything from apartment high-rise and prestige office to general hospital and warehouse distribution centers.

Now, I'm not exactly sure what this number includes. But I'm assuming it is only direct construction costs and doesn't include (contractor) general conditions, land, or any soft costs, which are all significant. Once you add in these other cost inputs, I am sure that you can start to see how things -- including the cost of new housing -- can quickly escalate.