The area bounded by Sher­bourne Street, King East, Par­lia­ment and Front Streets is set to develop into Toronto’s next great neigh­bour­hood. For decades, this down­town east area has not been on the radar for much except for the Grey­hound Sta­tion, the Toronto Sun build­ing, vacant park­ing lots and very lit­tle mar­ket value housing.

But the past few years have seen high end fur­ni­ture retail­ers spread out along King Street East, cre­at­ing the Fur­ni­ture & Design Dis­trict. This was truly a wel­come sign and an indi­ca­tor for the start of bet­ter things to come.

Down­town East Real Estate Map

Toronto’s Down­town East neigh­bour­hood boasts a col­or­ful his­tory. The neigh­bour­hood began in the 1800s when the promi­nent fig­ures and fam­i­lies of the first groups to migrate to Canada set­tled in this orig­i­nal down­town neigh­bour­hood, later split­ting up their mas­sive estates. Sher­bourne Street, with its beau­ti­ful man­sions, was a major player in 1900s down­town east, being deemed one of Toronto’s most styl­ish sub­urbs. Sher­bourne Street was orig­i­nally named so to hon­our one of the promi­nent fam­i­lies of the east down­town neigh­bour­hood, the Rid­outs, who migrated to Canada from their home in Sher­bourne, England.

Down­town East real estate has many dif­fer­ent types of prop­er­ties to choose from. There are exclu­sive and lux­u­ri­ous, mil­lion dol­lar con­do­mini­ums; the older high-rise and walk-up apart­ments – many with art-deco designs. Scat­tered through the side streets, you will find a mix of semi-detached and detached homes. One bed­room con­dos in Down­town East are in mainly the $300–400,000 range. Most will come with lam­i­nate floors and gran­ite counter tops – and the usual amenities.

Front Street East

Down­town East real estate also offers charm­ing town­houses, plus many 19^th-century Vic­to­rian style houses and man­sions to choose from. The stacked town­homes of Down­town East are priced at $400,000 and up for a one bed­room, one bath­room prop­erty – with the Vic­to­rian row houses start­ing at $600–800,000. Then there are the old man­sions that can range any­where from $1 mil­lion and up. A lot of these homes and man­sions have been con­verted into multi-family homes and apartments.

Down­town East offers a refresh­ing vari­ety of shop­ping venues, like those located in Toronto’s largest indoor shop­ping mall, Eaton Cen­tre, which con­tains over 300 stores. On Yonge Street in the Down­town East neigh­bour­hood there is a hearty choice of restau­rants, both fine din­ing and casual, and there also over one-hundred bars, and a hand­ful of the­atres, to choose from. There are spe­cial events and con­certs to attend in Toronto’s Time Square-styled Yonge-Dundas Square. Down­town East is also home to the breath­tak­ing Allan Gar­dens, a pub­lic park that con­tains six dif­fer­ent green­houses, each with a diver­sity of gor­geous, exotic plants, which are located in the Allan Gar­dens Conservatory.

Down­town East Con­dos

Over a year ago, Con­text Devel­op­ments started build­ing an attrac­tive assisted hous­ing project on King Street East (just east of Ontario Street). Designed by Peter Clewes of Archi­tects Alliance, the build­ing is set­ting a new prece­dent for city hous­ing. The King Street retail por­tion of the build­ing is the flag­ship loca­tion of upscale fur­ni­ture retailer, Kiosk Mobilia, sell­ing the wares of stun­ning Ital­ian fur­ni­ture design com­pany, B&B Italia and the French line Ligne Roset.

Recently ren­o­vated in fan­tas­tic fash­ion is the build­ing for­merly known as The Alu­minum & Crown Stop­per Com­pany, located at 334 King Street East. It is one of the most beau­ti­ful sig­na­ture ware­houses in Toronto. The prop­erty was com­pletely ren­o­vated and upgraded. It now houses more top end fur­ni­ture retail­ers, high-tech com­pa­nies, and design stu­dios. A lit­tle over two years ago, Harhay Con­struc­tion Man­age­ment started their stun­ning 14-storey high design condo project East, which should be com­plete in 2012 or 2013.

Down­town Toronto East

Lamb Devel­op­ment Corp. has launched its new 15-storey devel­op­ment called The King East, at King Street East and Par­lia­ment; one of the last poten­tial devel­op­ment sites along King Street in the orig­i­nal ten blocks of old Toronto. The high-style red brick and glass struc­ture will house 186 suites along with a large mez­za­nine style retail ele­ment with 20+ foot ceil­ings. Cur­rently under con­struc­tion, this new condo should be fin­ished in 2012–2013. In addi­tion to these incred­i­ble changes, another new condo project, “Bauhaus” is sell­ing at Sher­bourne and King Street East.

At the nearby St. Lawrence Mar­ket, four major new projects are in var­i­ous stages of devel­op­ment (VÜ – com­plete, Mar­ket Wharf – under con­struc­tion, Lon­don on the Esplanade – com­plete, and L Tower – under con­struc­tion). Con­cert Prop­er­ties is plan­ning a new major devel­op­ment at Church and Front Street East, The Berczy. This huge pop­u­la­tion of the St. Lawrence Mar­ket area feeds the retail stores along King Street East.

Clearly, Down­town East is mor­ph­ing into another vibrant and excit­ing neigh­bour­hood.  As the changes con­tinue to occur, we will see prop­erty val­ues rise mak­ing the Down­town East another great area to invest in.

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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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