Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 883

Architect Jeanne Gang (of Studio Gang ) has just been named to the TIME 100 , which is Time magazine's annual list of the world's most influential people. Jeanne is the only architect to be included in the 2019 list.

Jeanne was named to the "Titans" category, which typically honors those who are at the top of their respective field. She sits alongside Mark Zuckerberg, Tiger Woods, and LeBron James in this year's TIME 100.

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Past honorees within the architecture profession include Elizabeth Diller, David Adjaye, and Bjarke Ingels. All, stars.

The list is in its 16th year. But it'll be the first year where there will also be a day-long conference. (Lynne and Marc Benioff, of Salesforce, acquired the magazine in 2018 for $190 million in cash and are making some changes.)

Congratulations Jeanne.

Full disclosure: Studio Gang is the design architect for our One Delisle project in midtown Toronto.

According to the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO), scooter trips in the US surpassed station-based bike share trips for the first time in 2018. Here is a chart taken from Streetsblog :

Dockless electric scooters have created a public nuisance in many of our cities, but what is clear is that the demand is there. Which perhaps isn't all that surprising given that they require less effort than traditional cycling.

The other interesting takeaway from NACTO's analysis, which is likely also not that surprising, is that bike share trips are heavily concentrated in a select few cities.

In 2018, there were about 36.5 million bike share trips across the US. And about 84% of them took place in just 6 cities: New York, Boston, Chicago, DC, Honolulu, and San Francisco.

Almost half of the 36.5 million trips were on NYC's Citi Bike network.

Back in 2008, I toured the then new Mondrian Hotel Residences in Miami . At the time, the condo units were starting at around $700 per square foot. They came furnished (design by Marcel Wanders). And you had the option of putting it in the hotel pool so that you could earn revenue on it when you weren't using it. I can't remember what sort of ROI was being quoted at the time.

After reading this WSJ article today on fractional second home ownership, I decided to pull some listings in the Mondrian to see how values have fared over the last 11 years (even though the business models are different). Here is one : a 694 square foot 1 bedroom on the market for $295,000 (or about $425 psf). The HOA fee is $1,260 per month and, according to Zillow, the last recorded sale was on September 25, 2007. It sold for $630,400 (or about $908 psf).

Most people probably like the idea of owning a second home that makes money when they're not using it and that requires absolutely no work or effort. But frankly, I have yet to come across a highly successful condo-hotel project (where the units come and go from a hotel pool) and I have yet to see any data supporting fractional ownership (or private residence clubs) as a solid long-term investment.

If you disagree, feel free to prove me wrong in the comment section below.