Home to pic­turesque Allan Gar­dens and its lovely con­ser­va­to­ries, Moss Park has poten­tial, but it’s ham­pered by crime and gritty streets. There are signs of trans­for­ma­tion, largely via con­struc­tion cranes and projects out­side the neigh­bour­hood bor­ders. More buy­ers are will­ing to take a chance on the region thanks to its prox­im­ity to the core and rea­son­able prices.

Though there’s a strong social hous­ing pres­ence, condo tow­ers are rapidly ris­ing off Sher­bourne and Rich­mond, and King Street East is see­ing a condo boom among the old store­fronts and her­itage prop­er­ties. Young pro­fes­sion­als are turn­ing from the chaos of the Enter­tain­ment Dis­trict to Cork­town, which has been poised to pop for years. One sell­ing point is the prox­im­ity to the Dis­tillery Dis­trict (more of a des­ti­na­tion than a stan­dard com­mu­nity) and the foodie’s par­adise St. Lawrence Mar­ket.

Moss Park Real Estate Map

To the south­east, grand plans to develop the West Don Lands could bring extra foot traf­fic. If the nearby Regent Park revamp intro­duces more mid­dle– and high-income earn­ers, the down­town east side might no longer be the down-and-out.

Moss Park — the area of down­town Toronto extend­ing north from Queen Street East to Shuter Street and west from Tre­fann Street to Jarvis Street — was once part of 100 acres of park­land, owned by William Allan, one of the wealth­i­est men in town in the early 1800s. In 1830, Allan com­mis­sioned con­struc­tion of a vast man­sion on his estate, and named it Moss Park. The man­sion stood were the city park of the same name is today.

On William’s death in 1853, the Moss Park estate passed to son George, a future Mayor of Toronto. George lost no time in sub-dividing the land, and the neigh­bour­hood became one of the young city’s more afflu­ent areas, known for its hand­some Vic­to­rian houses.

Lit­tle remains of this orig­i­nal com­mu­nity. In 1962, the old homes fell to the wreck­ing ball. In their place, The Toronto Com­mu­nity Hous­ing Cor­po­ra­tion built a mas­sive pub­lic hous­ing project — the trio of 16-storey, 300-unit sub­si­dized apart­ment tow­ers that today char­ac­ter­ize Moss Park and gen­er­ate a neg­a­tive rep­u­ta­tion for the area.

Moss Park Real Estate

Despite the neighbourhood’s acknowl­edged social ills, how­ever, the many small streets and the areas on the periph­ery can sur­prise. Berke­ley Street, for exam­ple, with its row of attrac­tive gabled homes and land­scaped plots. Wilkins Avenue, a street of just 20 houses and its own residents-only park­ing. Or the mix of old and new town­homes on Trin­ity, just north of East­ern Avenue. Home-buyers look­ing for a fixer-upper might do well to check Seaton Avenue, to the north of Dun­das Street, where homes await­ing a ren­o­va­tor owner mix with already ren­o­vated Edwar­dian style homes.

The neighbourhood’s neg­a­tive rep­u­ta­tion pro­duces deals unlikely to be matched else­where in down­town; mean­while, the con­tin­u­ing gen­tri­fi­ca­tion of Regent Park and adja­cent neigh­bour­hoods such as Cab­bage­town, Cork­town and The Gar­den Dis­trict makes Moss Park a solid bet to see appre­ci­a­tion con­sid­er­ably above aver­age. In fact, as I have said for years, the entire east end is ripe for solid appre­ci­a­tion through the next 5 years or so.

For shop­ping, res­i­dents of Moss Park homes are close to the Sher­bourne, Queen Street East and Par­lia­ment retail strips, and within walk­ing dis­tance of St. Lawrence Market.

—————————————————————————————————–
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.
—————————————————————————————————–