With over 12,000 students enrolled, UTSC—or The University of Toronto Scarborough—has a housing shortage as it has only 765 beds on campus. They all go to first-year students at the school's eastern campus. Expansion of the campus is under way, so enrollment at UTSC is expected to grow by another 5,000 students over the next 20 years. That will put further pressure on the already insufficient housing situation. Lemine Investment Group and Devron Developments have teamed up to help fill this need with The Academy Condominiums by the University, a new investor-geared condominium development coming to Morningside and Ellesmere Avenues, a short walk to the west.

With the development still in its pre-launch phase, we dropped by the yet-to-open presentation centre for The Academy, where we got a sneak peek at a pair of scale models related to the project. 

The first model is meant to show The Academy's location in comparison to what's nearby. Most prominent in westward-looking the image below is the abundant parkland in the Highland Creek valley. Towards the bottom of the image are two buildings in deep blue; the closest to The Academy being Centennial College's Science and Technology Centre, while in the foreground is a new UTSC building, the $65 million Environmental Science and Chemistry complex.

Model showing The Academy in context with its current and future surroundings, image by Jack Landau

Backing away a bit, the southwest-looking view below shows the bulk of UTSC's deep blue buildings on the left, while the brand new $248 million, 360,000 square foot Toronto Pan Am Sport Centre, due of open later this year, can be seen at right. After the Pan and Parapan Am Games have finished in 2015, the world-class centre's will two Olympic-sized pools, dive tank, four-court gymnasium, indoor running track, indoor climbing wall, and other fitness and recreation facilities will be open to UTSC students and the local community.

Model showing The Academy in context with its current and future surroundings, image by Jack Landau

Scale model of The Academy Condos, image by Jack Landau

Designed by Kirkor Architects Planners, the project consists of a 26-storey tower containing 339 suites, with prices starting at $188,800. Since most students currently enrolled at UTSC commute from other locations in the GTA, suites at The Academy will no doubt appeal to those would prefer to not spend so much time travelling there and back every day. Those looking to invest in condo rental units won't likely find a more pent-up demand for such suites anywhere else in Toronto.

The Academy will feature two outdoor amenity terraces, on the second and fifth floors of the articulated podium, with plenty of space designed to allow residents to enjoy the outdoors in all sorts of ways. The terraces include lounging and dining spaces, a fire pit, both sunny and shady spots, and even a theatre space for enjoying movies on starry summer nights. All of this is set amongst green roof features.

Outdoor amenity area at The Academy , image by Jack Landau

Outdoor amenity area at The Academy , image by Jack Landau

Finally, the scale model also gives us another impression of how the tower's glowing roof feature will look once completed, with the rendering included below for the sake of comparison.

Illuminated roof feature on scale model of The Academy, image by Jack Landau

The Academy Condos, image courtesy of LeMine Investment Group and Devron Developments

We know there's a lot more going on inside The Academy, and we await word on what all of that will be. In the meantime, additional information and renderings can be found in our dataBase file, linked below. Want to get involved in the discussion about the development? Check out the associated Forum threads, or leave a comment in the space provided at the bottom of this page.