Lisa Van de Ven – National Post

Toronto has a love affair with the condo, with 28,466 new-build units pur­chased in 2011. Thou­sands more are planned. Suite size, price, ameni­ties and archi­tec­ture are impor­tant, but more and more, a building’s neigh­bour­hood is being con­sid­ered the ulti­mate draw.

“I haven’t got­ten used to it at all.”

Speak­ing from his 31^st storey condo suite at Queens Quay and Yonge, Pasha Nasirzadeh is refer­ring to the com­mand­ing view. It’s the rea­son you’ll often find him out on his bal­cony, some­times with his fiancée Andrea Kendaris, who’s mov­ing in next month.

With a south­west vista and no obstruc­tions from his sky-high van­tage point, Dr. Nasirzadeh loves look­ing out over Lake Ontario. “When the weather’s good in the sum­mer, Andrea and I pretty much have our din­ners on the bal­cony,” he says.

Ini­tially, it wasn’t the view that enticed Dr. Nasirzadeh to Toronto’s south­ern edge. When he started look­ing to buy a condo in 2009, all that the avid cook knew was he wanted some­thing within walk­ing dis­tance of St. Lawrence Mar­ket. When he couldn’t find any­thing, he ended up on the water­front. It turned out to be just right: A walk to the mar­ket and easy access to both pub­lic tran­sit and the Gar­diner Express­way (a con­ve­nience for the den­tist, who com­mutes daily to his prac­tice in Aurora).

He’d soon find out it was also an action-packed, diverse neigh­bour­hood. Today, you’ll see him and Ms. Kendaris tak­ing the ferry to the Toronto Islands for an after­noon, or vis­it­ing local hotspots such as the Har­bour Sports Grille to watch a game, or the lobby bar at The Westin Har­bour Cas­tle for drinks.

“In the sum­mer, there’s a lot of peo­ple on bikes and Rollerblades or jog­ging,” he says, and the cou­ple often joins them on their bikes, enjoy­ing sum­mer on the shore. “It’s very lively.”

On a recent evening, locals walk their dogs, jog­gers go by and a young cou­ple shares a kiss on the grass at Har­bour Square Park. There’s the odd tourist (evi­dent from their cam­eras) but it’s obvi­ous this neigh­bour­hood isn’t just for vis­i­tors. For Dr. Nasirzadeh and fel­low res­i­dents, the water­front is more than just a place to live; it’s a lifestyle choice. And thanks to the revi­tal­iza­tion under­way, res­i­dents are see­ing their com­mu­nity chang­ing, with a lot more neigh­bours get­ting ready to move in to enjoy the view.

Walk­ing against the wind on an April evening, James Rus­sell remem­bers drop­ping by the water­front to write at the Sec­ond Cup at Queens Quay and York, even before he moved into the neigh­bour­hood. Per­haps it was des­tiny that he’d fall in love with a woman who lived close by. He moved in with her in 2005 and has been there ever since; he’s now a mem­ber of the York Quay Neigh­bour­hood Asso­ci­a­tion. As a res­i­dent, he says, he sees a side of the water­front not a lot of tourists (or even other Toron­to­ni­ans) are privy to. “In the win­ter it’s pretty quiet down here,” says the author of the young adult book Mer­maids and Zom­bies. “And year round there’s a com­mu­nity of peo­ple — we like to think of our­selves as ver­ti­cal com­mu­ni­ties. We really are a lit­tle city here.”

While there are ameni­ties Mr. Rus­sell wishes would make their way into the neigh­bour­hood, such as a good break­fast spot, more play­grounds, libraries and day­care facil­i­ties, a lot of what the res­i­dents need is there, includ­ing a new Sobeys in the Queens Quay Ter­mi­nal, the long-established Loblaws at Queens Quay and Jarvis, and even more facil­i­ties for the neigh­bour­hoods east and west of that.

“Peo­ple who live here have every­thing they need within a five-minute walk,” says Carol Jolly, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Water­front Busi­ness Improve­ment Area. “They’ve got all their ser­vices, like doc­tors and den­tists, gro­ceries, liquor store.”

Right now, what they also have is con­struc­tion in the form of the water­front revi­tal­iza­tion. A joint project by all three lev­els of gov­ern­ment, the ven­ture will lure more tourists to the lakeshore, and will ben­e­fit area residents.

While the water­front of the past was designed for indus­try, today the mas­ter plan involves a mix of uses. An esti­mate of 40,000 res­i­den­tial units (the future homes of approx­i­mately 115,000 peo­ple) is planned along the water­front from Duf­ferin to the East­ern Beaches over the next 30 to 35 years, give or take a few, says John Camp­bell, pres­i­dent and CEO of Water­front Toronto. There will also be new employ­ment, promis­ing to bring more activ­ity to the neigh­bour­hood even in the tourist-light win­ter months: Oxford Prop­er­ties has an office tower under­way and George Brown Col­lege is build­ing a new campus.

New recre­ational areas, mean­while, will give the influx of peo­ple places to gather: Sugar Beach has been a favourite since it opened in 2010 and there are new parks planned through­out the area as well.

Queens Quay will also undergo a com­plete redesign, with con­struc­tion slated to start this sum­mer, and expected to last 18 to 20 months. Car traf­fic will be reduced from four lanes to two, with a ded­i­cated Light Rail Tran­sit line installed, as well as a pedes­trian prom­e­nade. The Mar­tin Good­man Trail will be extended along­side, and other beau­ti­fi­ca­tion efforts, includ­ing new benches and trees, will be added. It will be a com­plete trans­for­ma­tion for a street once listed as part of the “Hall of Shame” by the Project for Pub­lic Spaces, a New York-based non-profit focused on cre­at­ing stronger pub­lic spaces.

“We will turn it into one of the 10 most beau­ti­ful streets in the world,” Mr. Camp­bell says. “I’m fore­cast­ing it will become Toronto’s sig­na­ture street.”

The changes will be more than wel­come to Queens Quay res­i­dent Kelly Gor­man, who’s on the Water­front Toronto stake­holder advi­sory com­mit­tee. “That’s some­thing I’ve been look­ing for­ward to for a num­ber of years now,” she says. “It will help a street that needs beautification.”

Ms. Gor­man, a retired teacher, moved to Queens Quay from Scar­bor­ough in 2001. Now she vol­un­teers at the Har­bourfront Cen­tre and walks every­where: to Ontario Place or down­town to Roy Thom­son Hall and some of her other favourite venues. “To me one of the great plea­sures of liv­ing down here is not only the beauty of it but also that you don’t have to go very far to do lots of things,” she says.

Ask Ms. Gor­man what else she likes about the neigh­bour­hood, and, like Mr. Rus­sell, she’ll name the strong sense of com­mu­nity. It’s a qual­ity vis­i­tors to the area wouldn’t notice. “I was really sick for about a week last month. Do you know how many peo­ple knocked on my door to bring me sup­per?” she says. “To me, if you get involved and make friends, it’s amazing.”

Then, of course, there’s the view. Like Dr. Nasirzadeh, Ms. Gor­man can’t get enough of it; for her, it’s a nat­ural pick-me-up. “It’s so relax­ing. It doesn’t mat­ter how stress­ful your day is,” she says.

And what says home more than that?

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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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