GTA becoming a condo mecca

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GTA becoming a condo mecca


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August, 2010

by Stephen Dupuis

Once a year, around mid-February, I make a whirlwind tour of as many new home and condo sites as possible as a prelude to the third-party judging of our annual BILD awards for design, marketing and project excellence. When you take in the GTA condo market all at once, it's truly remarkable to see what has been happening and even more exciting to see what's still to come.

Our waterfront redevelopment is finally underway with the first condo buildings on the market in a project called River City. The judges loved it enough to award River City, by Urban Capital, the Best Building Design award. With the Pan Am games coming in 2015, the waterfront is going to be a hub of activity for years to come.

A little further northwest, the redevelopment of Regent Park is well underway. The scale of the redevelopment is huge and very well conceived, finding favour with the judges who bestowed the very prestigious Places to Grow Community of the Year award on it.

Around the Air Canada Centre, there's a whole critical mass developing with signature buildings like the Elle Tower and Pier 27, not to mention The Residences of Maple Leaf Square and the pending ICE towers.

Proceeding along Front Street, it's amazing to see how far west City Place has progressed with the railway lands redevelopment on the south side. Meanwhile, various builders on the north side are contributing some very distinctive projects to the urban fabric. Then there's Liberty Village, which has developed into a thriving community and a little further southwest, a completely new neighbourhood forming in the Fort York area with so many buildings already standing and more to come. Remember the motel strip in Etobicoke? It's hard to believe how much condo development has already occurred there, let alone how much is currently being marketed and sold. And who knew the 427 corridor would become an active condo marketing zone as well Looking at the City from a north-south perspective, the Bay Street corridor is a beehive of activity while Yonge Street features signature projects like the 75 storey Aura building at College Park and the 65 storey One-Bloor development re-launched this Spring. Continuing north, there are all the great new buildings at Yonge/Eglinton, Yonge/401 and the North York City Centre. Coming back along Sheppard and Bayview, between NY Towers and the Concord Park Place re-development, the judges, all from either Vancouver, Calgary or Denver, were absolutely blown-away with the incredible amount of condominium community development taking place in this City, and we hadn’t even made it to the 905 yet. 905 regions For all the condo action in the City of Toronto, the condo market is rapidly emerging in the 905 Regions and, thanks to provincial policy, high-rise development will represent an increasing share of the suburban housing mix in the years to come. At the present time, Markham and Mississauga represent the two most active high-rise markets outside the Greater Toronto Area. It's hard to believe that Mississauga, the municipal poster-child for sprawl, is rapidly becoming the next City of Toronto as far as intensification is concerned, but it's true. Look no further than the 15 high-rise, 12 mid-rise Parkside Village master-planned community by Amacon in the Mississauga City Centre for evidence of the new 905 reality. The Mississauga sky-line will soon be home to one of the most distinctive high-rise residential towers to be seen anywhere. Nearing completion, the 56-storey “Marilyn Monroe” building (also known as Absolute World 1) by Fernbrook/Cityzen is reminiscent of the Santiago Calatrava designed Turning Torso building in Malmo Sweden. The great design debate of the future may be which is the more outstanding -- the Elle Tower or Marilyn Monroe? As for Markham, the World on Yonge mixed-use redevelopment project by Liberty Development is perched right on the 416 border at Yonge & Steeles. Meanwhile, the Downtown Markham community by the Remington Group is made up of 4,000 mid- and high-rise condo units with nary a single-detached home in the entire development. All along Highway 7, builders like Liberty and Times are building high-rise communities. According to Markham Mayor Frank Scarpitti, the pending Langstaff Gateway master plan will be the "poster child" for intensification. Looking ahead, we can expect to see much more high-rise development in York Region, particularly in Vaughan once the Spadina subway extensions pushes north to York University and beyond. There's no question that within a few short years, the current 80-20 split in high-rise housing between the 416 and 905 area codes is going to be 60-40, not just because provincial policy dictates it, but because of changing demographics, shifting consumer preferences and the relative affordability of high-rise condos in the overall scheme of things. Most buyers would either go to resale or new-build sites, and with new, to either low-rise sites or high-rise sites. When you look at both product types at once, the differences in marketing are as diverse as the lifestyles themselves but I have to say that when touring model suites, the out-of-town judges were unanimously impressed with what they saw throughout the GTA. Stephen Dupuis is the President and CEO of BILD.




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