Granite Place, 61-63 St Clair Ave W: Twin Towers With an All-In Fee

Granite Place is the building I show buyers who say they want a house but are ready to give up the snow shovel. Two 18-storey towers sit back from St. Clair Avenue behind gates and mature trees, on the land the Granite Club once occupied, and the fee covers almost every utility you can name. It is more than 45 years old, and that cuts both ways. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

Built on the Granite Club’s old grounds

The name is not a reference to the stone. Granite Place stands on the site the Granite Club left when it moved north, and the project was commissioned by Isadore Sharp’s Four Seasons Properties at a time when Toronto condominiums were still a new idea. Many early buyers used their suites as a city pied-à-terre, and plenty of owners have simply stayed and aged in place.

Credit for the design goes to Boris Zerafa of Webb Zerafa Menkes Housden, the firm now known as WZMH Architects. The towers use precast cladding and a lot of glass, and they sit well back from the street. Some suites in the second tower won a 1981 Design Excellence Award from the Ontario Association of Architects.

One thing to clear up early: the building profile I work from lists Tamaran Contractors Co. as developer, while Urbaneer’s history names Four Seasons Properties. My reading is that one built it and the other commissioned it, but if the distinction matters to you, the declaration will say who the declarant was.

Gates, gardens and a glass atrium

What sets Granite Place apart from almost every other tower on St. Clair is the setting. You come in through stone-and-wrought-iron gates under a tree canopy, and the grounds were laid out in 1981 by landscape architect Lois Lister. The two towers are joined by a central pavilion and a planted glass atrium that serves as the lobby.

That atrium was recently redone by Clinton Design Inc. with Urban Garden, and the article I relied on noted that finishing work was still going on. The interiors of the common areas still follow the direction Rosalie Sharp set when the building opened, with wood panelling and rotating artwork leased from the Canada Council Art Bank.

If you like a building that feels settled and quiet rather than a hotel lobby with a gym attached, this is the type. If you want new finishes in the hallways and a rooftop party deck, look at newer towers along the same stretch.

Suites that live like houses

Recorded sizes run from roughly 505 square feet to almost 4,500 square feet, so there is a real range here, from compact one-bedrooms to full-floor-scale suites. The larger plans are the reason most of my buyers come: proper entry foyers, more than one exposure and generous terraces or balconies.

Some floors have only eight or nine suites off a single hallway, which keeps corridors calm. A recent example two-bedroom of about 1,300 square feet had a terrace of more than 200 square feet and floor-to-ceiling glass along two sides, which gives you a sense of what the better plans offer.

Because the building is from the late 1970s, many suites have been renovated at least once and some have not been touched in decades. Two suites of the same size can be very different purchases. Budget for the kitchen, bathrooms and flooring if you buy an original suite, and ask whether past renovations had board approval.

What an all-inclusive fee really means

The fee here covers cable TV, common elements, heat, hydro, building insurance, parking, water and air conditioning. That is close to the most inclusive arrangement you will find in midtown. In practice you pay the fee, your property tax and your internet, and very little else.

That changes how you compare it. A newer tower nearby may quote a lower fee per square foot, but add back hydro, heating and cooling and a parking space, and the gap narrows quickly. On a large suite with a lot of glass, the energy portion alone is meaningful.

The flip side is that the corporation carries the cost of running and replacing the heating and cooling plant, and in a building of this age those systems have a finite life. I would read the reserve fund study with that in mind before I compared fees at all.

Price per square foot and the fee question

The building profile shows an average of about $1,205 per square foot. That is a premium price for a 1979 building, and the buyers paying it are paying for the setting, the large layouts and the address rather than new construction.

Because there was only one suite listed for sale at the time of writing, I won’t quote an asking range. Size varies so much here that a single listing tells you little anyway. My building sold report shows what has actually closed, by size.

When you look at fees, divide by square footage and then subtract what you would otherwise pay for hydro, heat, cooling and parking in a comparable building. That is the honest number to compare.

Also expect a wide spread in price per square foot inside the building. A renovated suite with a large terrace and two exposures will sell at a clear premium to an original suite on a lower floor facing another tower. The building average is a starting point, not a valuation.

Building specifications

Amenities at Granite Place

The recreation centre with a saltwater pool, whirlpool and saunas is the daily draw, and the two guest suites are a real convenience for owners whose family visits from out of town. The gardens are the amenity people mention most, and they are the one newer towers cannot copy.

Jatin’s honest take on Granite Place

Granite Place — 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.