The SoHo Metropolitan, 36 Blue Jays Way: Condos Above a Hotel

The SoHo Metropolitan was one of the first buildings in Toronto to put condominium suites on top of a working luxury hotel, and twenty-plus years later that arrangement is still the reason people buy here and the first thing I tell them to investigate. You get a King West address, two-storey loft plans that newer towers rarely offer, and parking and heat in your fee. You also get a fee per square foot that will make you blink. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

A condo-hotel, and what that actually means

The complex was built from scratch on what had been a parking lot, with the SoHo Metropolitan hotel at the base and private condominiums and two-storey lofts stacked above it. When it opened, the Globe and Mail described the hotel as closer to ultra-luxury than boutique, with 88 rooms, marble finishes and the Senses restaurant relocating into the building.

For residents, the selling point was the hotel’s services. Owners have been able to order room service from the hotel kitchen, and a 2017 Toronto Life feature noted Susur Lee’s restaurant Luckee operating in the building. Marketing material for the residences has also described access to a pool, whirlpool, sauna and fitness programs through the hotel.

Here is my caution. Hotel services sit on an agreement between the condominium and the hotel operator, not on the condo’s own amenity list, and hotels change hands, rebrand and renegotiate. The current condos.ca amenity list for the residences shows a gym, concierge, party room and meeting room but no pool. Before you pay for the hotel lifestyle, confirm in the status certificate and the corporation’s shared-facilities documents exactly what residents can use today and what it costs.

Two-storey lofts and multi-level penthouses

The format is what separates this building from the glass towers that came after it on Blue Jays Way. A share of the suites are two-storey lofts, and the penthouses run across two and in some cases three levels. One three-level penthouse featured by Toronto Life had a double-height living room with a window running up roughly 20 feet, plus a hot-tub terrace facing the CN Tower.

Most of what trades, though, is smaller. condos.ca lists suites from about 416 to 1,421 square feet, and the current inventory is mostly one-bedrooms and one-bedroom-plus-dens. Finishes reported for the building include floor-to-ceiling windows, hardwood, granite or marble counters and, in some suites, curved window walls.

A two-storey loft is a different way to live. Stairs inside the suite eat floor area, bedrooms upstairs get hot in summer, and furniture deliveries need planning. Walk the unit with that in mind rather than reading the square footage alone.

The height question and the second address

You will find the building described several ways. condos.ca records the residences at 36 Blue Jays Way as 8 storeys with 203 suites, while the Globe described private condominiums running from the 5th to the 15th floor, and one marketing page puts the full complex at 17 storeys. Unit numbering in the building runs into the 1100s, which fits the taller figure.

The likely explanation is that the residences sit on top of a hotel podium, so floor counts depend on what you measure. Part of the complex is also listed separately at 350 Wellington Street West. If you are comparing sales, make sure you know which address and which corporation a comparable belongs to, and confirm the corporation on any suite you buy is TSCC-1555.

Living at Blue Jays Way and Wellington

This is the quieter, more residential end of the Entertainment District, but only by comparison. You are steps from the theatre and restaurant strip on King Street West, the stadium and arena traffic on Blue Jays Way, and the office towers south of King. On game nights and festival weekends the street fills up, and that is part of the deal.

Clarence Square and the Wellington Street side give you some relief, and the area has kept adding residents, retail and towers around the building since 2003. The automatic panel on this page covers transit, schools and walkability, so I won’t repeat it; the short version is that people buy here to walk to work and dinner, not to drive.

What it costs, and why the fee looks high

The building averages about $742 per square foot on condos.ca. That is well under the roughly $940 to $950 per square foot the small Urban Capital loft buildings a few blocks north at Charlotte and Camden average, so on purchase price the SoHo Met reads as good value for King West.

The fee is the other side of that. Active listings average about $1.30 per square foot a month, which is high for downtown. Part of it is the inclusions: heat, air conditioning, water, building insurance and parking are all in the fee, so a suite with parking is not paying a separate parking charge and you are not running your own heating and cooling bill. Part of it is the cost of running a building tied to a hotel. Ask how the shared-facility costs with the hotel are split and how much of your fee goes to them.

At the time of writing there were five suites for sale and three for rent. Four one-bedroom and one-bedroom-plus-den listings were asking from about $509,000 to $699,000, with monthly fees across those four ranging from roughly $695 to $1,278. The spread in fees tells you how much size and parking matter here, so compare fee per square foot, not just the total.

Building specifications

Amenities at The SoHo Metropolitan

On paper the condo’s own package is modest: concierge, a gym, party and meeting rooms and a garage. What made this building special was access to the hotel’s services, and that is the part you need to confirm in writing before you count on it.

Jatin’s honest take on The SoHo Metropolitan

The SoHo Metropolitan — frequently asked questions

Looking at King West, Liberty Village and CityPlace more broadly? Start with my Toronto community guide — the neighbourhoods, what each pocket is like, and how they compare.