Downsizing closer to home
The wealthy may not want to deal with the gardener any more, but they don’t want to move too far from the familiar
By Derek Raymaker - Globe and Mail
To nobody’s surprise, most new super-luxury condominium projects hitting the market this year are staking out territory in and around the fashionable and pricey Yorkville shopping and dinning district.
Our review of the ever-growing $1-million-plus condo market focused last week on Yorkville, where you can easily buy into some princely accommodations that include private elevators, gargantuan wrap-around terraces, your choice of granite, limestone or marble, and even a private lap pool.
The large volume of super-luxe condominiums now on the market in Yorkville has tilted the whole submarket into the price stratosphere. As of March, the last month for which data is available, the average price of a new condo suite in Yorkville — the high-gloss corridor along Bloor Street between Yonge Street and Spadina Avenue — stood at $970 a square foot. That’s more than double the overall average price for Greater Toronto at $415 a square foot, according data collected by RealNet Canada.
Of the 17 active projects in preconstruction sales or under construction in Yorkville, six have an average price of more than $1,000 a square foot.
The market research compiled since 2006 — when super-luxury condos started to show up in large, measurable numbers — shows that many of these buyers are not just the fabulously wealthy, but also a lot of empty nesters from Toronto’s well-to-do central neighbourhoods with the ability to cash in big on their traditional houses. But Yorkville isn’t for everyone; it’s often congested and there is heavy road and building construction currently under way. And a lot of those house-rich empty-nester buyers want to stay near the neighbourhood from whence they came.
One such neighbourhoods is Forest Hill, between Spadina Road and Bathurst Avenue north of St. Clair Avenue. Tower Hill Developments has launched a 14-storey landmark condominium here, aiming to appeal to long-time residents who are tiring of paying landscapers to care for their immense lots and contractors to repair their aging manses.
Overlooking Sir Winston Churchill Park and an immense ravine network on Spadina Road and St. Clair Avenue West, construction is now under way with prices ranging from the mid-$800,000s for 1,500 square feet of living space to $2.5-million for 3,300 square feet. Among these suites are four 2,500-square-foot designs on two floors. All of the suites feature floor-to-ceiling windows curving outward in the middle of the building to give it an oval shape and allowing for unique suite layouts even in the smaller sizes.
Other neighbourhoods that are now fertile ground for super-luxury condo developments aimed at existing residents are strung along Bayview Avenue, especially south of Lawrence Avenue East.
The newest addition in this pocket is Huntington, recently launched by Tridel Corp. It will consist of a five-storey and a six-storey building with a total of 91 suites ranging from $1-million to $5.7-million and sizes of up to 6,000 square feet. Huntington will look out over the Sherwood Park Ravine just west of Bayview Avenue, with Sunnybrook Park and Wilmot Creek Park on the other side of Bayview.
Tridel is going to great lengths to make sure the structures integrate into the verdant landscape as much as possible, as well as make sure that residents can enjoy the outdoors with expansive terraces that are as large as 4,000 square feet.
Cresford Developments has also just launched a Georgian-flavoured high-rise-and-townhouse project in the neighbourhood, a few blocks north on Bayview Avenue south of Lawrence. Called the Stratford, the project calls for three high-density buildings with 67 suites ranging from $1.2-million for 1,500 square feet to $4-million for about 3,000 square feet. Surrounding them will be 17 four-storey Georgian townhouses and all the classical ornaments that come with it, designed by architect Joe Brennan.
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