Massey Tower, 197 Yonge St: 60 Storeys Behind a 1905 Bank Hall

Massey Tower is the condo you enter through a bank. The 1905 Canadian Bank of Commerce building on Yonge Street was restored and turned into the base of a 60-storey Hariri Pontarini tower, with Massey Hall next door and the Elgin and Winter Garden theatres to the south. The setting is unique; the suites are mostly small, and the fee covers less than you might think. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

A tower grounded by a 1905 bank

The Canadian Bank of Commerce building at 197 Yonge was designed by Darling & Pearson in 1905 as the bank’s Queen and Yonge branch, and it had sat empty since 1987. It is designated under the Ontario Heritage Act. MOD Developments restored it with ERA Architects and set the new podium and tower back from the street, so the bank still reads as the main building on Yonge.

Hariri Pontarini Architects designed the tower behind it, a slim, faceted shaft about 208 metres tall on an S-shaped footprint. The project collected a long list of awards, including BILD and Ontario Home Builders’ Association honours in 2013, a Toronto Urban Design Award of Merit and a Heritage Toronto award in 2021.

Part of the site went to Massey Hall: the northeast corner of the complex added much-needed backstage space to the concert hall. The rest of the land has its own history. The vacant lot beside the bank was once the site of the Colonial Tavern and later a small park before construction began.

Who built it, and why names vary

You will see different developer names attached to Massey Tower. MOD Developments led the project and the heritage work; Intracorp’s own site describes it as a partnership between Intracorp, MOD Developments and Tricon. Condos.ca lists Intracorp. All three are accurate for different parts of the story.

The suite count varies by source as well: Intracorp lists 697 homes, condos.ca lists 699. Intracorp gave completion as fall 2018, and the condominium corporation registered in October 2019.

Small suites, a parking podium and a busy lobby

Suites run from about 377 to 1,085 square feet, so this is a building of studios, one-bedrooms and compact two-bedrooms. There are no large family suites. Every suite I saw listed for sale was under 700 square feet, from studios in the 400s to one-plus-dens in the 600s.

Parking sits above ground, on floors three through eight of the podium, rather than in a deep underground garage. That means the residential floors begin above the garage, so even the lowest suites sit well above Yonge Street. Cecconi Simone designed the interiors, including the lobby, which keeps the historic bank doors.

Two of the current listings on condos.ca are priced under $65,000, which almost certainly means parking spaces or lockers sold separately. That tells you parking is not bundled with every suite, so confirm what you are getting.

With so many small suites, layout quality decides value. Look for a studio or one-bedroom where the kitchen does not eat the living space, a den that can take a desk, and a balcony you will actually use. On Yonge, the side of the tower you face changes both the view and the noise.

Living at Yonge and Queen

This is about as central as Toronto gets. Massey Hall is next door, the Elgin and Winter Garden theatres are to the south, and the Eaton Centre and the Financial District are a short walk. The transit panel on this page has the subway walking times.

Yonge Street here is busy, loud and lively at all hours, with crowds after concerts and shows. If you want quiet, choose a higher floor facing away from Yonge, and visit on a show night before you commit.

The upside is that you will rarely need a car. Groceries, pharmacies, the PATH network and the theatre district are all within a short walk, and Toronto Metropolitan University’s campus is a few blocks north.

What Massey Tower costs

Condos.ca puts the building average at about $820 per square foot. That is slightly below several newer towers nearby, which partly reflects how many small suites trade here and how much competition there is between them.

About a dozen listings were for sale and ten for lease when I checked. Leaving out the parking and locker listings, studios in the 400s were asking about $390,000 to $410,000, one-bedrooms in the 500s about $489,000 to $495,000, and one-plus-dens in the 600s about $528,000. Fees ran from about $379 to $907 a month.

The gap between a studio and a one-bedroom is only about $80,000 to $100,000 at these asks. For an owner-occupier, that extra wall and door are usually worth paying for, and one-bedrooms tend to resell and rent more easily than studios in a building with this much small-suite supply. Studios make most sense for investors who buy at the right price and plan to hold.

That spread of fees on similar-sized suites is wide, so ask what each one includes. Condos.ca lists only common elements, building insurance and air conditioning in the fee, so heat, water and hydro are likely on your own bills. Compare total monthly cost, not fee alone. For past trades, see my building sold report.

Building specifications

Amenities at Massey Tower

The Massey Club amenity floor has a gym, steam room, rain room, sauna and juice bar, plus a cocktail lounge, piano bar and terrace. For owners in under 700 square feet, those rooms do real work as extra living space. A spa circuit of steam, rain room and sauna is more than most small-suite towers offer. Ask how it is maintained and booked, since these rooms are expensive to keep running in a building of about 700 suites.

Jatin’s honest take on Massey Tower

Massey Tower — frequently asked questions

Looking at St. Lawrence, the Financial District and Downtown Yonge more broadly? Start with my Toronto community guide — the neighbourhoods, what each pocket is like, and how they compare.