Can Toronto move beyond the investor condo? This bespoke development is betting on it

(1 Marlborough/Devron Developments and Dorsay Development Corp.)

Up-and-coming luxury condo project 1 Marlborough, slated to break ground in Toronto’s Rosedale neighbourhood, is as much a visual contrast to the city’s condo developments of recent memory as it is a departure from the philosophy behind them.

The design’s vaulted arches, reminiscent of timeless apartments in Manhattan, London and Paris, are anchored by a storied heritage building. Glass curtain walls aren’t part of the equation, but rather 13 storeys of masonry-crafted curves and corners.

Inside, the envisioned suites are aimed to attract well-heeled downsizers from surrounding neighbourhoods — people accustomed to living in houses who may not be willing to trade privacy, quiet or space for the convenience of condominium living.

That focus on the end user is at the centre of the project, being developed by Devron Developments and Dorsay Development Corp.

The building will contain just 58 residences, ranging from about 1,800 to more than 8,000 square feet. A showroom is set to open this fall, with construction anticipated to begin in the first half of 2027 and completion estimated for 2030. Pouyan Safapour, president of Devron Developments, says prices are expected to start in the high $3-million range and reach roughly $30 million.

For years, Toronto’s condo development machine was remarkably good at producing something investors wanted to buy. Whether those units made particularly good long-term homes is a question bubbling to the surface as the market deals with a glut of unsold units.

Now, as Toronto’s condo market works through a prolonged correction and investor demand has retreated, Safapour says attention is shifting back to a buyer who was often secondary during the boom: the person who actually plans to live there.

When investors drove the market

The project is arriving at a defining moment for Toronto condos.

The Bank of Canada recently pointed to strong investor demand as one of the forces behind Toronto’s condo construction boom. Developers, needing substantial presales to obtain construction financing, increasingly built smaller units that could be sold at lower absolute prices to investors. The result is now a mismatch: the bank estimates micro units represent about 60 per cent of new condos coming onto the market, while only 30 per cent of new households fit the profile typically associated with buying them.

Safapour is careful not to blame investors for what was built. They became a necessary part of the development ecosystem, he says, allowing projects to meet presale requirements and helping Toronto produce a significant quantity of housing over the past two decades.

The problem, in his view, was a “misalignment of interest” between someone purchasing a condo as an asset and someone choosing it as a home. During the height of the investor market, he says, “end user” was almost a forgotten term.

“It was all about investors. And now it’s become the inverse,” he told Real Estate Magazine.

Luxury in the things you don’t see

Rendering of a kitchen within a suite at 1 Marlborough (contributed).

At 1 Marlborough, designing for an end user begins with some obvious differences. There are fewer and substantially larger residences, generous outdoor spaces and direct elevator access to nearly all suites.

But Safapour argues some of the more important differences may not be immediately apparent.

“There’s all the stuff that you wouldn’t actually immediately see but you feel,” he says.

That includes triple-pane, acoustically treated windows and double partition-wall assemblies between suites, separated by an air gap. Ceilings are also dropped and insulated to further reduce sound.

The building will also have water leak detection and automatic shut-off systems, direct fresh-air ventilation, in-suite humidifiers and water filtration.

Elevators are another consideration. With only 58 residences and direct elevator access to most suites, the project is deliberately avoiding a familiar highrise frustration: long waits to get home.

For Safapour, these are not extras so much as an acknowledgement that people spending millions on a home will notice how it performs once the novelty of its finishes wears off.

Building around what was already there

The historic facade which serves as a base for the luxury suites (contributed).

That same thinking extends to the architecture.

The development incorporates a century-old heritage building that once housed an automobile showroom and later became a CBC television studio, where programs including Mr. Dressup were produced.

Rather than design an unrelated contemporary tower above it, Audax principal Gianpiero Pugliese looked to the existing building for cues.

“Why do we have to necessarily build something that is a glass box?” he asked aloud in an interview with REM. “Why can’t we design in a way that builds upon the heritage that is there?”

Arches from the original structure, for example, are reinterpreted at the upper levels of the new building, while Audax is using masonry and more traditional proportions in place of the glass curtain-wall aesthetic that has come to define much of Toronto’s condo boom.

Pugliese says he has approached 1 Marlborough “like a very large custom residential project,” with Audax responsible for both its architecture and interior design.

Inside, that means layouts intended to ease the transition from a house, including large living and dining areas and covered outdoor spaces.

A different bet on Toronto condos

Safapour says Devron’s focus on end users is not a response to market conditions. Rather, homing in on peak livability has always been his style, he said.

“We’re not pivoting or changing because the wind is changing,” he says.

The company pursued the same approach when speculative demand was much stronger, he says, even if that meant building fewer projects than it otherwise might have.

Safapour says more than 3,000 people have already registered interest in 1 Marlborough.

But Pugliese believes one lesson from the project need not be confined to buyers at the very top of the market. Better proportions, more thoughtful layouts and greater attention to how interiors relate to a building’s architecture do not necessarily require expensive materials.

“They don’t have to be expensive,” he says of better-designed buildings. “They just have to be thoughtfully designed.”

The post Can Toronto move beyond the investor condo? This bespoke development is betting on it appeared first on REM.