Brandon Donnelly, the Managing Director of Development at Slate Asset Management, is joining us in this episode. Apart from Slate, Brandon also writes a daily blog for city builders, and has been doing so since 2013.

Today’s discussion is going to revolve around making development work and managing its risk in the inflationary environment we currently find ourselves in. Brandon gets into the extra caution involved in development these days and why he is still bullish on Toronto real estate.

Topics covered include:

• Complications from revenue softening but costs still being high.
  
• Being extremely cautious towards bringing projects to market right now.
  
• Why lenders can make things difficult for condo developers.
  
• The first development project at Slate.
  
• Tensions throughout any development process.
  
• The goals that Slate had when they started and how they’ve grown since then.
  
• Negotiating a fixed price contract in this environment.
  
• Why Brandon thinks we’ll begin to see more off-site construction of components.
  
• What can be done to improve the development landscape in Toronto.
  
• Small-scale projects and why they would benefit the most from incentives.
  
• Concerns Brandon sees about price elasticity in this market.
  
• Taking a long-term view and seeing that Toronto will be fine.
  
• Brandon’s experience of being in the US during the 2008 recession.
  
• Leading capital flows versus following capital flows.
  
• What Slate is doing to get ahead of the curve on ESG.
  

More about our guest….

Brandon Graham Donnelly is a real estate developer and blogger based in Toronto. He is Managing Director of Development at Slate Asset Management and founder of the Globizen Group. Brandon has over 15 years of real estate experience and is known for his creative, design-forward, and detailed-oriented approach to development. Recent projects that he has led include Junction House and the Studio Gang-designed One Delisle tower in midtown Toronto. Prior experience includes development positions at CAPREIT (development lead), TAS, and Morguard, where he managed urban infill residential (condo & rental), office and retail projects. In 2013, he also cofounded the condo review site Dirt (thedirt.co), which was acquired in 2018. Brandon studied architecture and fine art history at the University of Toronto. He also has a master’s in architecture and real estate development from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA focused on innovation & entrepreneurship from the Rotman School at the University of Toronto.

In his spare time, Brandon loves photography, snowboarding at new mountains, house and techno music, local Ontario wines, and NFT art.

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