100 Davenport Condo Proposal

As further real estate development occurs in downtown Toronto, pricier and more dramatic architecture is coming to the neighbourhood, particularly with this newest project slated for north Yorkville at 100 Davenport (at Bay).

Designed by Douglas Cardinal with Diamante as the Developer, this proposed tower is a big shift away from your typical glass box in that it is 39 stories that blossom open into a flower pedal formation on top of a Gaudi-esque base. The residential floors will see undulating waves around the corners of the building.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of this project however isn’t the design, but rather the price-tag. Despite only be 39 stories tall, the entire building will house only 53 suites, which means they will be enormous in size by recent downtown Toronto condo standards, with about half of the floors containing two suites each and the rest with only one 4,000+ sq.ft. suite per floor.

Based on the neighbourhood, design and planned materials, this condo can confidently be included in the ultra-luxury category.

The question I have is whether Toronto’s luxury condo market can handle more luxury real estate at the moment. We’ve seen the development of this segment of the market appear quite quickly in the past 5 years or so with the additions of the Trump Tower, Shangri-La Residences, the Four Seasons Residences and the Ritz-Carlton residences, amongst other condos aiming to capitalize on the same market such as Aura Condos, but are there enough high-calibre buyers to take on the purchase of another new ultra-luxury condo such as 100 Davenport? Or will the project flounder in the search for wealthy purchasers?

The project has yet to get the green light from the city, so we’ll have to await the results of the city and community review panels before we know whether this project will get to the next stage or not. In any case, I’m a huge fan of the design and love the originality and whimsy of the shape.