Blue Diamond, 99 Foxbar Rd: A Tower Built Into a 1911 Church at St. Clair

Blue Diamond is the tower that grew out of a church. Camrost Felcorp kept the walls of the 1911 Deer Park United Church at St. Clair and Foxbar, took the roof off the nave to make an open courtyard, and put a glass tower behind it with a link to the huge Imperial Club amenity floor next door. It is one of the more interesting new buildings in midtown, and most of what is for sale here is small. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

The church is the building’s front door

Deer Park United Church dates from 1911. It closed in 2008 and was designated as a heritage property the same year. Rather than demolish it or wrap a tower directly on top, Diamond Schmitt kept the church as the base and removed the nave roof and parts of the walls, turning the old sanctuary into an open-air sculpture courtyard.

The idea came from architect Don Schmitt, who had seen a bombed London church turned into a garden. The plan was for the former chancel and apse to become a restaurant behind a large glass wall, serving both residents and people passing by. Stone from the removed sections was earmarked for reuse on the townhouses along Foxbar Road.

Day to day, that means your building entrance sits beside a heritage courtyard instead of a driveway. It also means the corporation owns a piece of a 1911 stone church, so heritage masonry is a long-term line in the reserve fund, not a one-off.

Tower, townhouses and the Imperial Club link

The tower itself is deliberately plain, with clean lines and glass so it does not fight the church. It topped out at about 88 metres in early 2020. Six three-storey townhouses, marketed as the Foxbar Towns, sit along Foxbar Road to the south.

The bigger selling point is next door. Blue Diamond connects through a climate-controlled link to Imperial Plaza, Camrost Felcorp’s conversion of the 1957 Imperial Oil building, and residents were promised use of the Imperial Club: a full amenity floor in that building with an indoor pool, hot tub, steam room, two squash courts, a large gym, yoga studio, golf simulator, screening rooms and a games room.

How that sharing works in practice, including cost-sharing between the two corporations and any rules on access, is set out in shared facilities agreements. Ask for them. They affect your fees and your rights far more than the brochure does.

Suites: mostly compact

The suite sizes recorded for resale here run from about 485 to 705 sq ft, and active listings when I checked were one-bedrooms in the 500s and a two-bedroom in the 700s. That tells you the resale market at Blue Diamond is mostly small suites, even though the building also includes larger plans and the townhouses.

Small suites in a building with an amenity floor this size can work well: you have a pool and a gym without needing space at home. But if you need a real second bedroom or a family-sized plan, you will be competing for very few units, and you should compare with older buildings on St. Clair that offer far more space per dollar.

Ask about ceiling height, the depth of the balcony and which way the suite faces. North-facing suites look across midtown toward Yonge and Eglinton, while south-facing suites look out over the old shoreline escarpment toward downtown. In a small suite, light and outlook do a lot of the work that square footage would do in a bigger one, and they are a large part of what you will get back when you sell.

Living at St. Clair and Avenue Road

This stretch of St. Clair sits between Yonge Street and Avenue Road, with the shops, grocery stores and restaurants of Yonge and St. Clair a short walk east and Forest Hill Village to the west. The panel on this page covers transit, schools and parks.

Imperial Plaza next door is a much larger building, and the 1967 former Ministry of the Environment building is on the other side, so the block has a lot of residents for its size. St. Clair itself is a busy arterial, so lower floors facing the street will hear it.

The other thing to understand is how much is still changing on this block. A courtyard restaurant in the old chancel was part of the plan from the start, and a busy restaurant at your doorstep is a plus for some buyers and a nuisance for others. Ask what is operating now, its hours, and how deliveries and garbage are handled relative to the residential entrance.

Pricing: new-build per foot, small-suite totals

The building average is about $986 per square foot. That is a premium over Imperial Plaza next door at about $908, which makes sense for newer construction, and well below the boutique buildings around Forest Hill Road and St. Clair that trade at roughly $1,200 to $1,650 per foot.

Active listings asked from roughly $400,000 to about $770,000, covering one-bedrooms and a two-bedroom. Because the suites are small, the totals look approachable for the area, but per foot you are paying for new construction and the amenity package.

Maintenance on active listings works out to about $1.03 per square foot, almost identical to Imperial Plaza. condos.ca does not list fee inclusions, so ask what is covered and how much of the fee goes to shared Imperial Club costs. With three units for sale and four for rent, there is a healthy investor presence.

Building specifications

Amenities at Blue Diamond at Imperial Village

On paper this is one of the deepest amenity packages in midtown, because the Imperial Club floor is shared with the much larger building next door. That depth comes with a cost and with neighbours: make sure you understand the shared facilities agreement and how busy the club is before you count it as yours.

Jatin’s honest take on Blue Diamond at Imperial Village

Blue Diamond at Imperial Village — frequently asked questions

Looking at Yorkville, the Annex and Midtown more broadly? Start with my Toronto community guide — the neighbourhoods, what each pocket is like, and how they compare.