Toronto’s housing sector seeing change amid pivot to purpose-built rentals

If the renderings bear out, the most distinctive feature of an elegant 18-storey building slated for 450 Dufferin St. in Toronto, just north of Queen Street West, will be its very ordinariness. The project, which is expected to break ground in late 2025, has no fussy angular planes or sculptural balconies. It’s a bit squat. And, in contrast to the dozens of very tall glass-clad point towers that now dot the downtown, the exterior façade will be masonry with so-called punch-windows – sort of like the ones in the apartment where your grandparents lived.

It’s not the only such project in the works, says architect Brian Melcher, a principal at Superkül, which is designing 450 Dufferin for Hullmark. “We’re seeing a shift toward simpler, more constructible, better cost-effective design. That project is a good example of where we’re seeing the market kind of pivoting to,” Mr. Melcher says