Monde Condos, 12 Bonnycastle St: Moshe Safdie’s Toronto Debut

Monde is the building I send people to when they want a waterfront address that already feels finished. It was Moshe Safdie’s first Toronto commission, it backs onto Sherbourne Common, and it was completed in 2019 by Great Gulf. The fee looks low per square foot, but that is partly because it covers less than most buildings, so do the arithmetic before you compare. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

Safdie’s first building in Toronto

Moshe Safdie is best known for Habitat 67 in Montreal, and Monde was his first Toronto commission, done with Quadrangle Architects for Great Gulf. The tower is mostly glass, set on a large two-part concrete podium that reads as more solid and opaque than the tower above.

Christopher Hume, the former Toronto Star architecture critic, gave it a B+ in his Storeys review. He said it is not Safdie’s best work, but that it looks great on the waterfront and occupies its site with confidence. That is about where I land too: a good building, not a monument.

Two design details matter in daily life. An east-west opening cuts through the building, which Hume said makes it feel more residential. And the balconies are long and narrow, which he compared to diving boards. If you want to put a dining table outside, measure first.

Sherbourne Common is the back yard

Monde sits a block east of Sherbourne Street, beside the northern half of Sherbourne Common. Hume noted that the building and the park feel fully connected, so the park works as a kind of back yard for residents. That is a real advantage over towers that only look at a park from across a busy road.

The wider neighbourhood is East Bayfront, one of the newest planned districts in the city. Over the past decade the area has filled in with offices, George Brown College’s waterfront campus and other residential towers, including the Bayside buildings east of the park. You are on the water without being in the tourist traffic west of Yonge.

The flip side is that this is still a district under construction. Expect cranes and road work nearby for years as the remaining waterfront parcels are built out, and check what has been approved around your exposure before you buy a view.

Suites from studios to large family plans

Suites run from about 483 to 2,679 sq ft. Most of what trades are one-bedrooms, one-plus-dens and two-bedroom-plus-dens in the 500 to 900 sq ft range, with a small number of much larger suites. Compared with many towers of the same era, Monde has more genuinely large plans for a family or a downsizer.

Condos.ca lists a concierge, gym, outdoor pool, party room and rooftop deck. That is a solid package, but not a resort one; the park and the water front door do a lot of the work.

How Monde compares with its waterfront neighbours

East Bayfront is now a line of towers along Queens Quay East, and buyers often visit three or four in a day. Monde’s points of difference are the Safdie design, the direct link to Sherbourne Common and a fee that looks low per foot. Its weak points are the narrow balconies and the fact that utilities sit outside the fee.

Pier 27, closer to Yonge, is lower and wider and includes parking and utilities in its fee, but it costs more per foot. The Bayside towers east of the park are newer. Monde sits between them on age and price, which is often where the best value is.

Great Gulf is one of the larger developers in the GTA, with a long record of towers and low-rise communities. That does not guarantee a building, but it does mean there is an established warranty and customer-care process if issues come up in the early years.

With 547 suites, there is usually a steady supply of listings and rentals here. That gives you comparables to price against, and it also means you are rarely the only seller when you want to sell.

The low fee and what it leaves out

Condos.ca puts the building average at about $879 per square foot, which is fair for a 2019 waterfront tower with a known architect. For context, Pier 27 at the foot of Yonge averages above $1,000 per square foot on the same portal.

Across current listings, the fee works out to about $0.87 per square foot, with listed fees from about $476 to $761 on the smaller and mid-sized plans. The catch is that condos.ca lists only common elements and building insurance as included. Heat, cooling, water and hydro are not listed, which suggests suites are individually metered; confirm this with management. Add those bills back before comparing Monde with a building whose fee includes utilities.

Asking prices are spread well. One-bedrooms are listed from about $500,000 to $529,000, one-plus-dens from about $599,000 to $620,000, and two-bedroom and two-plus-den plans from about $700,000 to $750,000, with the occasional large-format suite priced well above that. The data panel beside this review shows what has actually sold and leased.

A simple way to compare: take the fee, add a realistic monthly estimate for hydro, heating, cooling and water from the seller’s actual bills, and divide by the suite’s square footage. Do the same for any building you are weighing against Monde. That all-in number per foot is the fair comparison. If you want help pulling the numbers on a specific suite, book a call and I will walk through it with you.

Building specifications

Amenities at Monde Condominiums

The amenity list is straightforward: a gym, an outdoor pool and a rooftop deck cover most needs. With Sherbourne Common on one side and the water trail a few steps south, you will probably spend more time outside the building than in its common rooms.

Jatin’s honest take on Monde Condominiums

Monde Condominiums — 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.