383 Sorau­ren offers mod­ern inter­pre­ta­tion of indus­trial chic

Ryan Starr – Toronto Star

For Bill Gaird­ner, the launch of 383 Sorau­ren rep­re­sents a maiden voy­age of sorts, the first condo he’s devel­oped since strik­ing out on his own just over a year ago.

383 Sorau­ren, a 10-storey mid-block masonry build­ing designed by Peter Clewes of archi­tect­sAl­liance, is meant to be a mod­ern inter­pre­ta­tion of the old ware­houses that dot Ron­ces­valles Vil­lage. (Next door to 383 Sorau­ren is Robert Wat­son Lofts, a turn-of-the-19^th-century fac­tory that was con­verted into con­dos sev­eral years back, with much of the orig­i­nal gritty char­ac­ter kept intact.)

383 Sorau­ren will have 144 units that range from 470-square-foot stu­dios to 1,500-square-foot three-bedroom-plus-den pent­houses. There also will be four, two-storey, two-bedroom town­houses located along Sorau­ren Ave.

Prices range from $250,000 to $899,000. Occu­pancy is sched­uled for 2016.

The project, which went on sale this week, had over 700 reg­is­tra­tions as of late March. Gaird­ner — who left Freed Devel­op­ments at the end of 2011 to launch his own firm — sees that as a sig­nif­i­cant vote of con­fi­dence for his inau­gural condo effort. (His part­ner on the project is Mar­tin Niro of Cen­tre­stone Urban Developments.)

“It’s the first bou­tique launch of the sea­son, so a lot of peo­ple are keep­ing an eye on it,” Gaird­ner says as he strolls through the half-finished 383 Sorau­ren pre­sen­ta­tion cen­tre a few weeks before the project’s offi­cial opening.

“It’s a totally dif­fer­ent mar­ket (com­pared with pre­vi­ous springs),” he acknowl­edges. “But if any­thing the mar­ket has been speak­ing loud and clear that this is the kind of prod­uct it’s still inter­ested in.”

“We designed this build­ing to attract end users. It might have a slower absorp­tion sched­ule, but I’m fine with that.”

True Neigh­bour­hood

Res­i­dents at 383 Sorau­ren will have plenty of tran­sit options, includ­ing the Dun­das and Col­lege Street street­cars, and a GO train con­nec­tion at Bloor and Dun­das. (Unfor­tu­nately the condo has a rail­way cor­ri­dor run­ning behind it, but so do Rosedale man­sions, Gaird­ner points out.)

The build­ing is a five-minute stroll from a revi­tal­ized Ron­ces­valles Avenue, which offers a parade of hip restau­rants, bars, cof­fee shops and gal­leries. “I feel like it’s the first neigh­bour­hood when you head west from down­town that feels like a neigh­bour­hood but still has the urban flair and feel for peo­ple who don’t nec­es­sar­ily want the Kingsway or High Park,” Gaird­ner says.

383 Sorauren’s suites, designed by John­son Chou, will have ter­races or bal­conies and nine-foot ceil­ings, with 10-foot ceil­ings in the two-storey pent­house suites.

The build­ing will have a fit­ness cen­tre and a ter­race with an out­door lounge, bar­be­cues and a din­ing area that backs onto Sorau­ren Park, located just south of the prop­erty (where there’s a farm­ers’ mar­ket every Mon­day evening.)

The project’s masonry ware­house look is a trib­ute to the area’s indus­trial past. “We didn’t want to put up some fancy glass box in the mid­dle of this neigh­bour­hood,” Gaird­ner says. “That would be really out of context.”

At the same time, he stresses, 383 Sorau­ren isn’t going to mimic the older archi­tec­ture either. “We want to tip our hat to that kind of struc­ture because it’s beau­ti­ful,” he says, refer­ring to the Robert Wat­son project next door. “But we still want to do a build­ing that’s mod­ern and cool that speaks to our gen­er­a­tion and time.”

Find­ing Freed

Gaird­ner got his break in the devel­op­ment busi­ness from Peter Freed, King West’s condo king.

Fresh out of uni­ver­sity and look­ing for a job in the indus­try, Gaird­ner intro­duced him­self to Freed back in 2004, in the ele­va­tor of the condo where they both lived (Freed’s 66 Port­land). “I said, ‘I bought into your condo, I’ve always wanted to get involved in the busi­ness, and I’d really appre­ci­ate the chance to chat with you,’ ” Gaird­ner recalls.

Freed gave him his email address, and Gaird­ner, now 30, says he “chased him down for about six months before he finally agreed to give me a job.”

Gaird­ner started off doing any­thing that fell off Freed’s desk, and before long had got­ten a crash course in all aspects of the condo biz. “It was such a small orga­ni­za­tion that I was doing things well beyond my years,” says Gaird­ner, who even­tu­ally became Freed’s vice pres­i­dent of devel­op­ment. “I got the best edu­ca­tion going because it was hands-on and Peter was doing a lot of really excit­ing things.”

In 2011, Gaird­ner decided to go solo. His mis­sion: to develop his own brand of “cool build­ings where real human beings want to live.”

“I had this entre­pre­neur­ial hunger. I wanted to see if I could actu­ally do it (on my own),” he says. “I think I always knew I could, it just seemed risky.”

To mit­i­gate risk on his first foray, 383 Sorau­ren, Gaird­ner has sur­rounded him­self with an A-team of Toronto condo con­sul­tants, includ­ing archi­tect Peter Clewes and designer John­son Chou. “I’ve got great part­ners, a great team and I’ve also done this a bunch of times,” Gaird­ner notes. “So for me it doesn’t seem like an insur­mount­able task.

“It’s just a refresh­ing expe­ri­ence being able to do it on your own ver­sus doing it for some­one else.”

The Details

Loca­tion: 383 Sorau­ren Ave.
Devel­oper: Gaird­loch Devel­op­ments & Cen­tre­stone Urban Devel­op­ments
Archi­tect: Peter Clewes, archi­tect­sAl­liance
Inte­rior design: John­son Chou
Size: 10 storeys
Suites: 144
Prices: $250,000 to $899,000

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Con­tact the Jef­frey Team for more infor­ma­tion – 416−388−1960

Lau­rin & Natalie Jef­frey are Toronto Real­tors with Cen­tury 21 Regal Realty.
They did not write these arti­cles, they just repro­duce them here for peo­ple
who are inter­ested in Toronto real estate. They do not work for any builders.
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