I met Stratton Townley at the Waterworks Food Hall in Toronto, a couple of hours before it opens, with ten or twelve people sat about with coffees and nobody hovering to work out whether they intended to spend anything.

Stratton is at Woodcliffe Landmark Properties, a small, private, family-run developer that has been on the same Toronto street for thirty years. His stepfather founded it; his mother runs it. He spent his first decade in brokerage and investment sales avoiding the family business entirely, on the strength of one job interview where he was told not to take the job.

The thirty years is what this episode is really about. Woodcliffe kept Waterworks rather than registering the condos and moving on, which turned a real estate landlord into something closer to a hospitality operator — and gave them a feedback loop most develo ...