Brad Lamb

Brad Lamb came to Toronto in the '80s after developing a taste for buying and selling houses while working as an engineer. Born in Vancouver and raised in Montreal, he's become one of the city's star realtors and developers, with a name almost synonymous with the city's condo boom, and an image buffed up by high profile advertising and a reality TV show on HGTV.

His high profile earned him the questionable honour of being the subject of a song, but Lamb is a passionate advocate of dense, bustling cities as opposed to suburbs, so it's no surprise that he has strong opinions about what makes a city work.

What is your day job?

I'm a real estate broker and developer in the city of Toronto, primarily.

What neighbourhood do you live in?

I live downtown on Lakeshore in the Tip Top Lofts building. I think it's gotten a little bit better over the years but it doesn't feel integrated into the city. It's a little off the beaten track and requires the use of a car more than I'm really happy using a car. I think the city planning has failed along that part of the Lake Shore. The buildings that have been completed have not had to put in what I would call viable commercial retail to give the street life and livability. There's nothing to do or buy in the neighbourhood, so you have to get in your car and go somewhere else.

How often does your job take you outside of the city?

I have work in Montreal and Ottawa and we have land in the Caribbean and I have other assets in the States so probably five or six days a month I'm out of Toronto.

Have you ever been tempted by another city, and if not, what makes Toronto such a good place for your business?

I've done development in Montreal and in Ottawa on a pretty large scale, and from the standpoint of living Ottawa is personally not a city that I'd want to spend all my days in. Montreal is a beautiful city and I lived there for many years growing up and I loved it and I would live there again except that there are no real serious real estate opportunities in Montreal.

Toronto is a mix of both - Toronto offers a lifestyle on a par with Montreal in terms of entertainment, on a par perhaps with New York; it's a little New York that offers probably the best opportunities for real estate in the world.

Do you have any travel tips?

I think the best travel tip is: Be prepared. So if you're going to a new city where you've never been research it so if you're only there for a short time you don't waste time.

First Class or coach?

I prefer to go first class but my father was a Depression baby and he imparted a certain level of money carefulness to me, so I would say it's about 50-50.

Aisle or window?

Usually the aisle.

Aside from friends and family, what do you miss about Toronto when you're away?

Toronto feels like home to me, so there's a sense of just missing home when I'm away.

When you're away, do you see things in other cities you'd like to adopt here?

Every city has some great things to offer and one of the great things about traveling is that you get to learn and absorb those ideas and bring them home. I think that the modern architecture, the melding of old historic properties with modern architecture like you see in New York and Chicago with high buildings, and on a smaller scale in Europe, in places like Barcelona in Paris and London.

You see a tremendous mix of old and new, where they're not afraid of incredible modern architecture, starkly modern, shockingly modern architecture right next to a 300-year old building, and they manage to make it complement each other. That's the best lesson Toronto could learn. Also the one thing I think we can learn from great commercial cities is the development of retail to provide employment and livable streets.

Where are you off to next?

I'm off to New York on Wednesday (today), and I'm off to Scotland the following week to get married.