Toronto Haven On The Bluffs Condos | 38.71m | 10s | VHL Developments | Master Building

[Eug]

^^^ What are you showing in those pix? The scaffolding?

 

[OneC]

^^^ What are you showing in those pix? The scaffolding?

Look closely. Brick is on.

 

[DianaE]

Here's a (somewhat) better look of the brick. I took it earlier today. They've laid the brick across that one floor.

 

[OneC]

Here's a (somewhat) better look of the brick. I took it earlier today. They've laid the brick across that one floor. View attachment 138725

Poor VHL- they did double the work on this. I guess they anticipated that a fully stucco facade would get approved. Kind of feel bad for them- not sure how they are going to make any money on this building. Lol.

 

[willwu]

today。

 

[Eug]

Poor VHL- they did double the work on this. I guess they anticipated that a fully stucco facade would get approved. Kind of feel bad for them- not sure how they are going to make any money on this building. Lol.

What is the evidence for that? You’ve mentioned something to that effect a few times, yet in the end there is brick going up.

So far we believe they submitted with a brick facade and then there was a rumour they applied to get that changed to a pre-clad brick-like surface, but that isn’t a full stucco/EIFS facade.

 

[nutsandbolts123]

Poor VHL- they did double the work on this. I guess they anticipated that a fully stucco facade would get approved. Kind of feel bad for them- not sure how they are going to make any money on this building. Lol.

I doubt the land was all that expensive compared to other locations. There were three empty stores for years. So much has changed on Kingston Road from Victoria Park to Midland. A welcome change.

 

[OneC]

You clearly don’t know too much about building construction. Brick is not installed on top of a styrofoam/EIFS layer. In this case it was a retrofit after the fact. If you’ve driven by the building and looked with any kind of detail, you’d notice they needed to install steel supports on the second floor face to hold the brick.

If they intended on following through with brick for construction, a brick ledge would have been installed on the concrete exterior. Like every other brick building in history. The evidence of their application is posted on Toronto’s online Application Planning Service. Not sure where the rumour for precast brick panels came from.

What is the evidence for that? You’ve mentioned something to that effect a few times, yet in the end there is brick going up.

So far we believe they submitted with a brick facade and then there was a rumour they applied to get that changed to a pre-clad brick-like surface, but that isn’t a full stucco/EIFS facade.

 

[OneC]

I doubt the land was all that expensive compared to other locations. There were three empty stores for years. So much has changed on Kingston Road from Victoria Park to Midland. A welcome change.

The property transacted for $4,600,000 back in 2011. Around the same time, VHL purchased the land at 2150 Lawrence for ~7,000,000 (for ~600+ units). So this was expensive comparatively. Tack on the difference for substantially increased construction costs from 2011 to 2018, higher levies and DC’s, plus years of private financing... I’m surprised they haven’t abandoned the building. Most if not all units were sold for $360-$390/sf, and prices were not increased during the 2011-2016 sales period. Very little left in the end.

 

[innsertnamehere]

$360/sf? holy crap that is cheap. A 1,000 sf 3 bed unit for under $400k is crazy.

 

[OneC]

$360/sf? holy crap that is cheap. A 1,000 sf 3 bed unit for under $400k is crazy.

I know- so crazy!! Purchased a 1BR for $179,900 in 2014, then a 2+1 for $379,900 in late 2016. It’s kind of unbelievable that they didn’t increase prices. Even kept the same price/sf on the latest townhouse release. There were a few years 2014-2015, where the project was at a stalemate and wasn’t moving past 55% sold.

 

[Eug]

You clearly don’t know too much about building construction. Brick is not installed on top of a styrofoam/EIFS layer. In this case it was a retrofit after the fact. If you’ve driven by the building and looked with any kind of detail, you’d notice they needed to install steel supports on the second floor face to hold the brick.

If they intended on following through with brick for construction, a brick ledge would have been installed on the concrete exterior. Like every other brick building in history. The evidence of their application is posted on Toronto’s online Application Planning Service. Not sure where the rumour for precast brick panels came from.

Feel free to post the application, but I assume you mean the application to change the face after the original approval.

I know- so crazy!! Purchased a 1BR for $179,900 in 2014, then a 2+1 for $379,900 in late 2016. It’s kind of unbelievable that they didn’t increase prices. Even kept the same price/sf on the latest townhouse release. There were a few years 2014-2015, where the project was at a stalemate and wasn’t moving past 55% sold.

You said it yourself. They had a hard time selling for a while, despite the low prices.

It may be a combination of factors: For one for example, a family we know that bought there, later decided to sell because they found out the school district is quite bad. How bad? Not only does the local elementary school get bad Fraser Institute ratings, it had instances of naked drug addicts knocking on its windows from the nearby crack dens. The high school there also gets bad ratings.

It’s great the area is changing, partially because of that project, but it’s always hard to be the first project to initiate a wider gentrification process.

Then again, the local shops are finally starting to get better. For example, a Starbucks finally moved into the neighbourhood last year.

 

[nutsandbolts123]

Feel free to post the application, but I assume you mean the application to change the face after the original approval.


You said it yourself. They had a hard time selling for a while, despite the low prices.

It may be a combination of factors: For one for example, a family we know that bought there, later decided to sell because they found out the school district is quite bad. How bad? Not only does the local elementary school get bad Fraser Institute ratings, it had instances of naked drug addicts knocking on its windows from the nearby crack dens. The high school there also gets bad ratings.

It’s great the area is changing, partially because of that project, but it’s always hard to be the first project to initiate a wider gentrification process.

Then again, the local shops are finally starting to get better. For example, a Starbucks finally moved into the neighbourhood last year.

I have lived on the north side of Kingston Road for well over 30 years. While I don't know a lot about the elementary school directly behind the condo, I have many friends whose kids attended the school and their kids all went to university and are successful. My children went to Birchmount Collegiate down the road and I was very pleased with their education. One of my children wrote the SATs and went to university in the U.S. His scores were much higher than his friends who attended private schools. R.H. King is also a wonderful secondary school.

Cliffside is a wonderful community with a short walk to the GO station which makes for a very short commute to Union.

 

[Eug]

I have lived on the north side of Kingston Road for well over 30 years. While I don't know a lot about the elementary school directly behind the condo, I have many friends whose kids attended the school and their kids all went to university and are successful. My children went to Birchmount Collegiate down the road and I was very pleased with their education. One of my children wrote the SATs and went to university in the U.S. His scores were much higher than his friends who attended private schools. R.H. King is also a wonderful secondary school.

Cliffside is a wonderful community with a short walk to the GO station which makes for a very short commute to Union.

I know someone who has worked at that elementary school. He says some aspects of it were pretty rough, at least compared to several other schools he's been to, which is why the poor rating is not a big surprise. The teachers try hard, but nonetheless there are a lot of obstacles.

As for Birchmount Collegiate, sure, you can get a good education there (esp. with interested parents), but nonetheless the 2016-2017 ranking puts it in the bottom 15% of high schools in the province academically. It's not a surprise though, since their focus is more athletics. But hey, The Weeknd graduated from there. As for RH King, it has a much better reputation academically, and in the 2016-2017 year was ranked in the top 15% in the province. Its athletics are comparatively horrible though. One can argue about such rankings, about whether they are really relevant or not, but nonetheless they are a popular gauge of academics, especially to prospective parents looking at buying real estate. So, I suspect school district concerns represented one of several reasons that Haven on the Bluffs sold slowly despite the low prices.

BTW, I live in Cliffside too, south of Kingston Road. I like it here too, but if I'm being honest I'd have to say that the Kingston Road shopping strip is still pretty crappy. However, it is getting better, and the Haven on the Bluffs development should help that along. While I'm not a loyal customer of Starbucks, the fact that Starbucks has arrived is a sign of the area's gentrification progress. The area needs increased density and just a general refreshment, and I'm glad the initial objectors to the rezoning of the Kingston Road mall strip to allow such developments were too apathetic to continue with their complaints. In fact, I think the community consultation process is specifically built partially to weed out such initially vocal but ultimately uninterested objectors, so by the time several meetings had happened and the actual community consultation process was fully under way, the objectors were long gone.

 

[canazian]

Looks like we will have neighbours joining us in a 2-3 years at the north-west corner of Cliffside and Glenn Everest.
Site Plan Application just submitted, and it does appear lifstyle custom homes submitted it. Who knows if they will actually build it. Maybe they will flip it with all the approvals and design in place.