Polo Club II, 44 St Joseph St: Big 1988 Suites With Hydro in the Fee

Polo Club II is the second half of a pair of late-1980s towers that helped turn the stretch of Bay Street north of Wellesley into a neighbourhood. The suites are bigger than almost anything being built nearby now, the fee covers hydro, and the price per square foot is low for the area. The question with any building this age is what the next ten years of repairs look like, and that is where I would spend your time. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

One of the buildings that started the Bay Corridor

Polo Club II has a sister building, Polo Club I, around the corner at 1055 Bay Street, finished a year earlier. The two towers, together with 1001 Bay Street, formed the Bay Corridor Community Association, a residents’ group that now speaks for a long list of condo buildings between College and Charles Streets.

That tells you something useful. This is a part of downtown where condo owners have organised for years around local planning and development, and that tends to show in how a neighbourhood holds up. If you buy here, it is worth finding out whether the building is still active in the association.

St. Joseph Street itself is short and much quieter than Bay. You get the Bay Street address in practical terms, with the grocery stores, offices and the walk to Yorkville, without a suite facing six lanes of traffic.

Suites sized for living, not just for investors

Suites at Polo Club II run from about 545 square feet to roughly 2,718 square feet. The active listings I reviewed included a one-bedroom in the 500 square foot band, a one-bedroom plus den in the 700 square foot band and a two-bedroom priced near the top of the building’s range.

That spread is typical of buildings designed in the 1980s, when downtown condos were mostly bought by people who planned to live in them rather than rent them out. The result is a building where a 700-square-foot one-bedroom plus den is a mid-sized suite, not a large one, and where the biggest plans compete with a house for floor area.

Unit numbering here runs into the high 20s even though building profiles list 25 storeys, which suggests some floor numbers are skipped. Check the actual storey of any suite you look at if height and view matter to you.

A fee that includes hydro and cable

The maintenance fee covers common elements, heat, air conditioning, hydro, cable TV, building insurance and water. Bundling hydro is now rare; almost every building finished in the last 20 years meters each suite separately.

Across the active listings, fees worked out to about $1.04 per square foot. That looks high against a new tower, but once you add a monthly hydro bill and cable back onto the newer building, the total is closer than it first appears.

Parking is not on the list of inclusions in the building profile, so confirm whether a suite you like comes with a space and whether there is a separate charge for it.

How it compares with its neighbours

The obvious comparison is Polo Club I at 1055 Bay Street. It is a year older, slightly smaller at 22 storeys and 335 suites, and swaps the outdoor pool for a squash court and a whirlpool. Both are managed by Del Property Management and both include hydro in the fee, so the choice usually comes down to the specific suite, the view and the amenity you would actually use.

A step up in size is 1001 Bay Street, the third founding member of the residents’ association, a 35-storey tower from 1990 with 564 suites that averages about $739 per square foot. Polo Club II sits a little below that on price per foot, which partly reflects 1001 Bay’s height and views.

Against the newer towers on the same street, the gap is larger. Five Condos at 5 St. Joseph Street averages about $898 per square foot and 1 Thousand Bay, at the corner of Bay and St. Joseph, about $1,015, both on condos.ca, and neither lists hydro as a fee inclusion. If you need space more than you need a new lobby, that difference is the whole argument for this building.

What Polo Club II costs per square foot

The building averages about $696 per square foot on condos.ca. That is low for a tower one block from Bay and Wellesley, and it reflects both the building’s age and the size of the suites, since bigger suites almost always trade at a lower price per foot than small ones.

When I wrote this there were three suites for sale and two for rent. Asking prices ran from about $390,000 to about $925,000, with fees across those listings of roughly $563 to $1,319 a month.

For a building of 387 suites, five listings at once is a thin market, and it means the comparable you need for your exact layout may not be available today. When a suite does come up, its size band, floor and view matter more to the price than the building average does.

With only a handful of listings at any time, the best guide to value is the building’s recent sold history rather than asking prices. Ask me for the building sold report before you set a budget.

Building specifications

Amenities at Polo Club II

An outdoor pool and sauna, with concierge and security staff, is the core of the package. An outdoor pool is a summer-only amenity in Toronto, so treat it as a bonus rather than a reason to buy, and remember it is a long-term cost the reserve fund has to carry.

Jatin’s honest take on Polo Club II

Polo Club II — 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.