Pinnacle Centre I, 12 Yonge St: The Small Tower With Hydro Included

Pinnacle Centre I at 12 Yonge is the smallest tower in a four-building complex, and that is exactly why I like it. You get a 29-storey building of under 300 suites, a recreation package most towers would envy, and a fee that already covers your hydro. What you have to accept is the Gardiner next door and years of construction across Yonge. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

One of four towers on the old railway lands

Vancouver-based Pinnacle International built Pinnacle Centre as four towers on about 3.8 acres of former railway lands, bounded by Yonge Street, Harbour Street, Bay Street and the Gardiner Expressway. Across the four buildings there are roughly 1,880 residences.

12 Yonge is the second phase and the shortest of the four, at 29 storeys and about 92 metres. Its siblings are much taller: 16 Yonge at around 40 storeys, Success Tower at more than 50 and 33 Bay at 51. Wikipedia records 298 suites here; listing data says 297. Either way, it is a mid-sized building inside a very large complex.

That combination is the point. You share elevators and hallways with a few hundred neighbours, not six hundred, while living next to the scale of amenities a 1,880-suite community can support. The trade-off is that taller neighbours define many of the views, so the direction a suite faces matters more here than in a standalone tower.

A complex this size also has more moving parts behind the scenes. Shared garages, shared recreation space and shared mechanical systems usually come with a cost-sharing agreement between the corporations, and that agreement decides how big repairs are split. It is dry reading, but it is where the real long-term costs of a building like this are written down.

Layouts and what faces where

Suites range from about 321 sq ft at the small end to about 1,761 sq ft. Most listings I see are one-bedrooms, one-plus-dens and compact two-bedrooms between about 600 and 900 sq ft, which is the sweet spot for professionals working in the core.

Orientation is everything on this block. North-facing suites look toward the Gardiner and the rail corridor, which a listing puts within about 150 metres of the building. South- and east-facing suites look toward the lake and Yonge Street, but the taller Pinnacle towers block some angles. Stand on the balcony of the actual suite before you decide, and do it at rush hour with the door open.

The building is concrete and glass and nearly 20 years old. That means original windows, balcony doors and in-suite heating and cooling units are now at the age where owners start replacing them. Ask the seller what has been updated and when.

Smaller suites here rent quickly to people working in the towers north of the tracks, which keeps investor demand steady. For an owner-occupier, that also means you will share the building with a fair number of tenants, so look at how the board handles move-ins, elevator bookings and short-term rental rules in the declaration.

The recreation centre and the construction next door

A current listing describes an amenity package that reads more like a club than a condo: an indoor lap pool with whirlpool, a dry sauna and a steam room, squash and basketball or racquetball courts, a tennis court, a yoga studio, a gym, a private theatre, billiards and table tennis, a library, a banquet hall, business lounges and terraces with barbecues. There is also a 24-hour concierge and a parcel room with mobile notifications.

I could not confirm from an official source whether every one of those facilities is in 12 Yonge itself or shared across the complex. Ask the property manager for a list of which facilities your fee pays for and which are shared, and how the cost is split between the corporations.

Directly across Yonge Street, Pinnacle’s own Pinnacle One Yonge redevelopment is reshaping the 1 Yonge site with a tower planned at more than 100 storeys. That means years of cranes, lane closures and noise for east-facing suites, followed by new retail, offices and thousands of new neighbours. Union Station, the PATH, Scotiabank Arena and the Financial District are all walkable; the data panel has transit details.

Harbour Street itself is a wide, traffic-heavy road that feeds the Gardiner and Lake Shore, so this is not a quiet lakeside address in the cottage sense. The waterfront trail, the ferry docks and Queens Quay are a short walk south, which is the real reward for living this close to the lake.

Pricing, and why hydro in the fee matters

The building average sits around $884 per square foot. That is close to its sister towers, with 16 Yonge at about $869 and 33 Bay at about $901, so you are not paying a premium for the smaller building.

There are only two suites for sale right now, asking between about $600,000 and $720,000. With so few listings, I price suites here by blending recent trades in this building with trades at 16 Yonge and 33 Bay, adjusted for floor, view and parking.

Fees on the active listings work out to about $1.07 per square foot, which looks high next to 16 Yonge at about $0.87 or 33 Bay at about $0.84. The difference is mostly hydro: here it is included, along with heat, air conditioning and water. Once you add a separately metered hydro bill back onto those buildings, the gap narrows, so compare total monthly costs, not just the fee. Parking is not in the listed inclusions. For actual sold prices, see the data panel or my building sold report.

Building specifications

Amenities at Pinnacle Centre I

If you would otherwise pay for a gym, a pool and a squash club, the amenity list here does real work. Confirm which facilities sit in this building and which are shared across the complex, because that affects both your access and your share of the eventual repair bills.

Jatin’s honest take on Pinnacle Centre I

Pinnacle Centre I — 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.