Address: 55 Lake Shore Blvd E, Toronto
Category: Residential (Affordable Rental, Condo), Commercial (Retail), Institutional (Education, Community Centre), Public Space / Park
Status: Pre-ConstructionCompletion: TBD
Height: 930 ft / 283.60 mStoreys: 85 storeys
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Toronto Sugar Wharf Condominiums (Phase 2) | 283.6m | 85s | Menkes | a—A

Nope, nothing that has gone in is necessarily final. That's not to say that it's a guarantee that none of the trees will stay, for example, but the final design is not dependent of keeping anything from what is being transferred to the City, including the drains.

Pinnacle's tower was sold during the period prior to the current slowdown. Pretty much anything going up now represents sales from three or four or more years ago. The development industry takes a while to respond to demand, as so much has to be lined up — financing, equipment, materials, workers — to put a big building up. Cranes are basically a delayed economic indicator.

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Makes sense - I do know that typically development projects have to secure 70% purchase before going up (as required by the financing from the banks). I also heard that that number drops a bit with more reputable builders and goes up with smaller builders. I guess Pinnacle have secured enough buyers for both Lakeside and One Yonge.
 
This is a pretty big project - and it seems like the rendering is not even final. Since there are more than usual unsold inventories in market, I guess they will wait a bit.

I am genuinely surprised that Pinnacle is so aggressive.

or they pivot to rental
 
Makes sense - I do know that typically development projects have to secure 70% purchase before going up (as required by the financing from the banks). I also heard that that number drops a bit with more reputable builders and goes up with smaller builders. I guess Pinnacle have secured enough buyers for both Lakeside and One Yonge.
Most likely the reasoning for this is that larger developers can make up the difference of lack of sales whereas smaller developers can't I imagine that pinnacle and Concord have a lot more disposable profit to work with then for example skydev
 
or they pivot to rental
I guess they could, but the profit and operational model is completely different.

Rental requires longer term profit model, and the unit will need to be operationally easy to maintain for the long run. I lived in a few rental condos (eg, Concert) before, and in comparison to the non-rental units, there are actually less problems in rental units but the finishes are not as high quality. Rental lobby also tends to be less luxurious as well, and more importantly, you need a rental office and more in-house staffing - rental volume has to justify these resources.

Anyways, all I am saying is that I don't see it being that simple to switch model halfway.
 
I guess they could, but the profit and operational model is completely different.

Rental requires longer term profit model, and the unit will need to be operationally easy to maintain for the long run. I lived in a few rental condos (eg, Concert) before, and in comparison to the non-rental units, there are actually less problems in rental units but the finishes are not as high quality. Rental lobby also tends to be less luxurious as well, and more importantly, you need a rental office and more in-house staffing - rental volume has to justify these resources.

Anyways, all I am saying is that I don't see it being that simple to switch model halfway.
Great commentary on what shifting to rental looks like.

….Maybe not halfway thru a project like this, but the market has been switching various projects to rental, presumably instead of outright cancelling or downsizing them. There are lots of new incentives and the returns are there, just more spread out. Less sensitive to the number of buyers in a market, and you could even own the land still.
 
I guess they could, but the profit and operational model is completely different.

Rental requires longer term profit model, and the unit will need to be operationally easy to maintain for the long run. I lived in a few rental condos (eg, Concert) before, and in comparison to the non-rental units, there are actually less problems in rental units but the finishes are not as high quality. Rental lobby also tends to be less luxurious as well, and more importantly, you need a rental office and more in-house staffing - rental volume has to justify these resources.

Anyways, all I am saying is that I don't see it being that simple to switch model halfway.
Quality of finishes has more to do with where the builder wants to position a building than it does the tenure (rental or condo). Developers that are determined to build a reputation on the quality of the finished product, whether it be that their name will forever be on a rental (so they can keep rents high for luxury product), or they want to be known as a high-end condo builder, will spend to whatever degree they care about their reputation...

…and yes, rental buildings often sacrifice space that could be another dwelling unit for a rental office and facilities for staff, and the financing model is different for rentals, the "pivot" typically requiring a longterm financial partner to be added to the mix that is happy to front the money for future returns.

It's good to see more purpose-built rentals returning to the market now. Not that I necessarily wanted some condo projects to fail, only to be revivable through the other model, it would just be good to have a market that could sustain enough building of both models to cover demand. Good luck to us with that!

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Quality of finishes has more to do with where the builder wants to position a building than it does the tenure (rental or condo). Developers that are determined to build a reputation on the quality of the finished product, whether it be that their name will forever be on a rental (so they can keep rents high for luxury product), or they want to be known as a high-end condo builder, will spend to whatever degree they care about their reputation...

There's a number of material premiums for rental units over condo unit. There's a premium of around $5k to $7k in hard costs for a rental unit.
Vinyl plank flooring over laminate, suite blinds, electronic locks at suite entry doors, additional metering for water/heating, more light fixtures per suite etc.
 
Given the lacklustre condo market in GTA right now, I can't see any big projects starting anytime soon. We are in an official lull at the moment, the first since the 1990s and early 2000s. Like interchange mentioned earlier, the cranes and buildings under construction now are reflective of 3-5 years ago. The situation now is pretty crappy. I don't see any major condo or office towers launching in the next year or two, maybe longer. We have been spoiled with such an incredible building boom from 2007-2023.
 
Given the lacklustre condo market in GTA right now, I can't see any big projects starting anytime soon. We are in an official lull at the moment, the first since the 1990s and early 2000s. Like interchange mentioned earlier, the cranes and buildings under construction now are reflective of 3-5 years ago. The situation now is pretty crappy. I don't see any major condo or office towers launching in the next year or two, maybe longer. We have been spoiled with such an incredible building boom from 2007-2023.
I was thinking today about how a long-term trade war would affect the budgeting and realisation of developments which are highly reliant upon use of building materials from American suppliers.
 
I'd have said it might be fairly nominal.

One of the biggest places that will be hit is the likes of mechanical HVAC equipment (heat pumps, fan coil units etc) - a sizable proportion of the mechanical equipment for Canadian jobs comes in from the US.
Most of the other big trades have a plentiful supply of domestic suppliers. In fact, a lot of trades had seen prices stabilize over the last year, even drop down - big trades like formwork were down around 20% to 25% of where they were a couple of years ago. Rebar supply is another one.

It's just that this will be another layer of extra costs on top of everything else that has increased in the last 5 years.
 

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