[URBAN NOTE] "One Bloor East reveals T.O.'s unquenchable thirst for condos"

[rfmcdonald]

1 Bloor East, a planned massive condo tower at the very intersection of Yonge and Bloor in the middle of downtown Toronto that was threatened by the collapse of its Kazakhstani backer in 2009 but saw a promised relaunch last year, is back. John Daly, writing in the Globe and Mail, wonders if the real estate bubble that ended the original project is back.

It's the sexiest vacant lot in Canada. What it lacks in amenities, it makes up for in location, location, location: the southeast corner of Yonge and Bloor Streets, Toronto’s crossroads, where the city’s most important subway lines meet underfoot. Just to the west is the snootiest row of shops in the country—Holt Renfrew, Cartier, Tiffany, Hugo Boss. A bit to the east soar the stately headquarters of corporate titans Manulife and Rogers.

This acre of dirt is rich in history, too—the post-millennial kind. It was the figurative summit of the city’s frenzied condominium boom of the 2000s, and ground zero for the bust stemming from the financial crisis in 2008. But most important, One Bloor East stands—or, rather, just lies there, for the moment—as an emblem of Toronto’s unkillable condo market. For that bust was quickly reversed by a stunning resurgence, despite a punishing recession.

[. . .]

[O]n March 24, 2010[, there i]s a low-key party for select real estate agents being held by Great Gulf to open its sales office for One Bloor East. “We aren’t opening to create lineups,” declares Bruce Freeman, Great Gulf’s executive vice-president of sales and marketing. The company doesn’t have to; it has already sold almost 85% of its 693 units, most of them by reclosing Gold’s clients.

A keenly interested bystander is Gold. He may have lost One Bloor East, but he’s now a comeback kid who will soon be able to point to his three other condo projects in Toronto.

There’s only one cinematic problem here: It’s a bogus journey for the only characters a young movie audience could identify with—first-time homebuyers. Vast numbers of them were priced out of the market for houses in Toronto and many other Canadian cities in the early 2000s. Condos are their only alternative. And, after all, new condo buildings have their attractions—One Bloor’s plans include a shopping mall, two pools, and a two-floor spa with a gym, yoga studio and “foot relax basins.” But the average new condo in Toronto now costs about $500 a square foot. That translates into about $250,000 for an entry-level one-bedroom of just over 500 square feet, and maybe twice that price or more in One Bloor or even ritzier downtown developments. Before monthly fees, that is.

Go, read the whole thing and wonder.