Tag Archives: thompson hotel
A penthouse with a magical quality
Jennifer Wilson – Toronto Star
Even in Toronto’s booming real estate market, $7.5 million is enough to take your breath away. Or maybe that’s just the private rooftop infinity pool with a view of the CN Tower working its magic.
Banish thoughts of picket fences and manicured lawns – this pricey property is a sky-high penthouse.
In addition to the pool, this entertainment district unit, which belongs to Thompson Hotel developer Peter Freed of Freed Developments (freeddevelopments.com) boasts a second private terrace, two private elevators and a luxury price tag of $7.5 million.
“I wanted to dream up the ultimate penthouse,” says Freed of the inspiration behind the three-bedroom, three-bathroom home. “We put so much passion into designing it.”
The sprawling 6,200 square feet of gleaming white marble and European oak sits on the 10th floor of 500 Wellington St., one of a mere 17 units in the building.
“High-end buyers were asking for a more exclusive building, where it was fully made up of large units and more private,” the developer explains. As a result, most of the units occupy either half or a full floor.
Freed’s unit occupies the entire top floor, with floor-to-ceiling windows that showcase the city from every direction, including views of the lake, the CN Tower and many a construction crane.
Freed says a “grand, open space for entertaining” was a must, and Toronto-based design firm Burdifilek (burdifilek.com), which was also responsible for the Thompson Hotel sales centre, delivered nearly 4,000 square feet, indoors and out, where guests can mingle.
Indoors, the airy living space features a restaurant-style kitchen with grey glass Scavolini cabinet doors, a Viking cooktop in the kitchen island, a breakfast bar, and a long book-matched marble countertop. Not to mention a large pantry for stowing a wide selection of hors d’ouevres and a wine fridge for 147 of your favourite bottles.
The outdoor entertainment space includes the infinity pool, a hot tub, a lounge area, and a barbecue and dining area with a surprisingly secluded feel.
“It’s a really exciting property,” says Freed, who has also purchased the top floor of other buildings he’s developed. But he never moved into this space, he explains, because they “bought many years ago when we didn’t have kids.”
Still, he spent five years planning the space, and a perk of being the developer, in addition to purchasing the penthouse suite, is the ability to bring in unusual finishes. Due to venting and permit issues, wood-burning fireplaces are a rarity in condo buildings – Freed did install one in a previous condo – and, in this penthouse, it’s sleekly nestled into smooth Staturio marble.
When not up for entertaining, the unit does allow some privacy via the second private elevator, which delivers the resident straight into the bedroom wing. The bedrooms each feature a spacious closet, with the master suite boasting a ready-to-be-customized walk-through (yes, it has two doors) larger than many second bedrooms in this city.
The master suite also delivers a private terrace and a large, marble-clad bathroom with water closet, rain showerhead, double-sink vanity and a free-standing soaker tub that looks out onto a private Zen garden, enclosed with ipe wood for added privacy.
The building itself offers few amenities, outside of the standard security, which was a conscious decision by the owners to keep maintenance fees down, Freed says. Even with the barebone offerings, owners of the penthouse will still be looking at upwards of $2,000 a month in maintenance fees. Exclusivity has its price.
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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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Towering Toronto
The city’s buoyant market is being boosted by a new wave of hotel-residence developments
By David Kaufman – The Financial Times
It’s been nothing but good news for Toronto’s frothy real estate market. After a decade of steadily rising property prices, 2011 was a near-record year for city residential transactions. Propelled by Canada’s booming, commodities-based economy, home sales jumped by more than 4% while average house prices, now at $465,412, increased by 8% compared with 2010, according to the Toronto Real Estate Board.
Those numbers contrast sharply with the market in the US, where the Commerce Department reported new home sales fell by an additional 2.2% in December, making 2011 the worst year in recorded American history.
Into Toronto’s buoyant urban arena comes a decidedly high-cost, and high-profile, new subsector: luxury condominium projects attached to five-star hotels. Long a staple of big urban areas worldwide, Toronto’s nascent hotel-residence boom is playing catch-up as international five-star brands such as Four Seasons, Ritz-Carlton, Trump and Shangri-La open their doors in the city’s skyscraper-filled Downtown and in luxury boutique-lined Yorkville.
“Toronto real estate has always lagged other leading global markets like Paris or New York,” says Peter Freed, a Toronto property developer working mostly in the loft-filled King Street West corridor. “This has left a serious void in the local marketplace.”
He ought to know. In 2007, his company, Freed Development, helped kick-start the city’s hotel-residential movement with the launch of 550 Wellington West, in partnership with a Thompson Hotel next door. Its 336 units, ranging from roughly 450 sq ft to 2,400 sq ft, are almost sold out. Prices have appreciated steadily, he says, from C$350 per sq ft at launch to about C$650 today.
Freed has moved on to Thompson Residences, a 310-unit development directly across from (and serviced by) its namesake hotel. But while 550 Wellington West almost had the hotel-condo market to itself, Thompson Residences, which opens in 2014, joins an increasingly crowded (and costly) group.
In the heart of Downtown, close to Toronto’s famous CN Tower and Air Canada Centre, the 159-unit Ritz-Carlton Residences opened last year on the upper 20 floors of a 53-storey Kohn Pedersen Fox-designed tower. The apartments are between 1,500 sq ft and 6,000 sq ft and cost from C$1.6m to C$9m. The Ritz-Carlton’s prices are consistent with nearby rivals, the newly-opened 118-unit Trump Toronto Residences and the 287-unit Shangri-La Residences, opening late this year.
Topping all three will be the costliest property development in Toronto’s (if not, Canada’s) history, the 200-unit Four Seasons Private Residences, which debuts late this year in a pair of new-build towers in the heart of Yorkville. Nearly sold out, Four Seasons units range from 1,265 sq ft to 9,000 sq ft, are priced from C$1.9m and include a 9,300 sq ft penthouse that has already been purchased for C$28m.
“The demand for large residences from 3,000 sq ft to 5,000 sq ft has been a real surprise,” says Janice Fox, Four Seasons director of sales. “They all sold out within the first year. We could easily sell another hundred more.”
Fox’s optimism may sound outsized. But the 4,000 sq ft to 6,000 sq ft residences on top of the nearby Hazelton Hotel helped establish Yorkville’s viability when they sold out at more than C$1,000 per sq ft a full year before the project’s 2007 opening date. Both properties, like the Trump, Ritz-Carlton and Shangri-La, have attracted large numbers of Asian and Middle Eastern buyers, while Americans and South Americans have been conspicuous in their absence. Strong interest by Canadians, and especially Torontonians, has been an additional surprise.
Luring buyers to these projects are the types of amenities and services typical of similarly-styled developments worldwide. There are restaurants with international celebrity chefs: New York’s David Chang and Daniel Boulud at, respectively, the Shangri-La and Four Seasons. Other services include private lobbies, 24-hour concierges, on-site meeting rooms and fleets of chauffeured cars.
“I’m five minutes from my office but also five minutes from shops and entertainment,” says John Hutson, a Toronto-based partner at Deloitte Canada, who purchased both a one- and two-bedroom condominium at the Shangri-La, which, like the Trump and the Ritz-Carlton, is set in the middle of Toronto’s financial district.
Yet with most office buildings and leisure amenities closed on weekends, the Downtown district’s main allure might also be its main shortcoming. Toronto-based buyers may want to live where they work but part-time residents may find Downtown’s desolation far less favourable. “The area feels vibrant during the day but turn out the lights and all you see are cabs and glass towers,” says David Fleming, an agent at Bosley Real Estate and author of torontorealtyblog.com.
And then there’s the projects’ pricing, which, considering the sheer number of units currently hitting the market, Fleming feels is unsustainably high. “We’re looking at upwards of C$2,000 per sq ft for some units,” he says. “I’m very curious to see what happens with the remaining units because personally I have no idea who’s going to buy this stuff.”
Buying guide
Pros
* New-build, top-quality design
* Five-star, on-site amenities
* Many projects close to Canada’s financial headquarters
Cons
* Upwards of twice average the Toronto condo price
* Downtown projects may feel desolate on weekends
* Potential for glut in the market; ongoing predictions of market “correction”
What you can buy for …
* $100,000: Nothing
* $1,000,000: 891 square foot / one-bedroom unit at the Shangri-La Residences ($973,600)
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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.
—————————————————————————————————–
Incoming search terms
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From mega clubs to mega culture in Entertainment District
By Raju Mudhar – Toronto Star
From clubs to condos to culture is how the latest narrative for this city’s once beleaguered Entertainment District is shaping up, with the soon-to-open Bell Lightbox cited as the crown jewel that will galvanize the downtown core.
Add that to three-months-young Thompson Hotel and the oncoming additions of the Ritz Carlton, Charles Khabouth’s new boutique hotel, Bisha Hotel and Residences, and even more development, condos and otherwise, and it’s no wonder that locals are almost bursting with glee.
“What’s the downside? The entire neighbourhood is thrilled,” says Janice Solomon, the executive director of the Entertainment District BIA. “This is one of our great news stories that’s just beginning to emerge. The timing couldn’t be better. The fact that they are going to have year-round programming is also a wonderful thing. We’re starting to try and make connections to the other institutions in the area, and that just means the introduction of TIFF is just one more anchor to this culturally rich area.”
You can almost hear the relief from Solomon being able to talk about the area in a good light compared to the long-simmering residents-versus-mega clubs feud that had come to define the district.
She rolls off TIFF statistics, like the 500,000 people that attended the festival last year and the 1.5 million they expect to bring in year-round and the $170 million annual economic impact from previous festivals. There’s also the fact that the BIA master plan aimed at making John St. a cultural corridor is looking even clearer with the Lightbox’s recently opened Oliver & Bonacini Canteen already packing folks in.
Clubs have long been painted as the villain in the area, but one nightlife operator is glad the district is getting a much needed shot in the arm.
“It is so important for the city to have a vibrant Entertainment District, and we’ve had some ups and down in perhaps the style of what it was, but I think it’s important for the whole of Toronto to have a corridor to come and enjoy,” says Nick Di Donato, president of the Liberty Entertainment Group, are platinum hospitality partners of the festival this year.
“TIFF will solidify that, although with more restaurants as opposed to the mega clubs,” he adds.
Di Donato’s company has long been involved in TIFF, with the Liberty Grand still hosting the opening night party. But also a sign of how things are changing and moving: the traditional opening night pre-gala cocktail event is moving from the Rosewater Supper Club to Spice Route on King St. W. and the Nikki Beach pop-up club that took over the Park Hyatt roof top will be at the C-Lounge on Wellington St. this year.
There’s never a shortage of parties and the truth is that many of the festival events moved south long ago, but many are saying that one of the holdouts will be the stars, who will stay in the Yorkville because they’re used to it.
“I don’t like to say ‘this type like to stay here,’ I think it’s up to individual preferences and also the studio partnerships,” says Tony Cohen, co-partner in the white-hot Thompson Hotel and Hotel le Germaine. “But I can tell you that talent already does stay down here. I can tell you that univocally. I think there will always be a market for talent to stay in Yorkville, but equally I think a new market is establishing itself down here.”
Cohen knows that discretion is a part of an hotelier’s creed, so it’s only through an unexpected run-in with an acquaintance that we can confirm that Michelle Williams (and the late Heath Ledger’s) daughter was enjoying the rooftop pool of the Thompson under the watchful eye of a nanny. Williams is in town shooting the Sarah Polley written-and-directed Take This Waltz.
But in the three months since opening, this city’s hipsters have been working their connections to get up to the exclusive and gorgeous Thompson roof top patio, as it is the current it spot and is sure to remain so for the duration of the festival.
Cohen and others who spoke with a reporter about the area are all very careful to state how the festival is still going to have a strong Yorkville presence. Acting as if that neighbourhood needs some reassurance — something not lost on TIFF co-director Cameron Bailey.
“Well, I guess Yorkville is like the girlfriend or partner you’ve had for years and years, and you love her, and you always will, but now it’s just time to move on,” he says with a laugh.
Bailey says he was been welcomed with open arms from establishments in the area, and also cites the timing being right for the move.
“I think if we had opened the building at the height of the Entertainment district being a full on Saturday night party time, it might not have been the best fit,” he says. “We can take part in some of that, but really, we’re about something else.”
The other thing that he likes is that he thinks the future of the festival harkens back to its early days.
“One of the things that I really loved about the festival in the early years was that it was really social event, and it was a walking festival. You could run into people on the streets… as we got bigger we expanded from Bloor-Yorkville to a wider part of the city. This year, it feels like, with the new building, we’re going to be able to build back some of that more tightly focused experience.
This leaves the condo dwellers, the young professional residents who already live, work and play in the area all year round. Like with most things in property mad Toronto, real estate is most definitely not left out of the equation.
“Cha-ching!” said Lorena Cordoba, a media professional who owns a condo near King and Bathurst. “With TIFF and the Thompson coming in, my property values are only going to go up.”
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Contact the Jeffrey Team for more information - 416-388-1960
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