The Britt Condos, 955 Bay St: The Sutton Place Hotel, Rebuilt as Condos

The Britt is the building I point to when a buyer tells me every downtown tower looks the same. Lanterra kept the parking levels and structural spine of the old Sutton Place Hotel at Bay and Wellesley, added nine storeys, and wrapped the base in limestone. What you buy is a new suite with a story behind it, at a corner that puts Queen’s Park, Yorkville and the university within an easy walk. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

A hotel with a past, rebuilt from the bones out

The Sutton Place Hotel went up in the late 1960s and, by Lanterra’s own account, was for years a favourite of visiting film stars. By the 2010s it had aged into a blank concrete slab with a closed-off street presence. Lanterra bought it in 2012 and chose to convert rather than demolish.

This was not a facelift. Lanterra said the below-grade parking and the building’s spine were the main pieces kept. Every wall, floor, pipe, wire and duct inside the suites is new, so you are not buying a renovated hotel room. You are buying a new condo built on an old frame, with nine extra storeys on top.

Lanterra also said pieces of the old hotel, including parts of the lobby, chandeliers, marble, woodwork and ballroom fireplaces, would be worked into the common areas. Ask to see them on your tour. It is a small thing, but it gives the lobby a character most new towers do not have.

The limestone podium is the reason to look

Page + Steele/IBI Group extended the podium along Wellesley and up to about eight storeys, and clad it in limestone to line up with the older buildings on the street. The architecture critic Christopher Hume gave the project an A in his Storeys review, and singled out the stone base as the part that matters. He compared the vertical rhythm of the Wellesley windows to the art deco lines of Maple Leaf Gardens.

Above the podium, the tower is a more ordinary glass condo, broken into sections with orderly balconies. Hume made the fair point that on a tight corner you never see the tower whole, so the street level is what defines the building. If you like the feeling of walking home past stone rather than spandrel glass, that is worth something here.

The podium also holds retail. Lanterra planned roughly 20,000 to 25,000 square feet on the lower two floors, which gives the corner more life than the old hotel ever did.

Suites, and what the fee covers

Condos.ca puts suites at about 382 to 1,190 square feet, from studios up to three bedrooms. The current listings show the shape of the building: a small number of studios and one-bedroom-plus-dens, a strong middle of two-bedrooms in the 700 to 799 square foot band, and a few three-bedrooms. Many of the two-bedrooms are compact, so check the floor plan before you assume a family will fit.

The fee includes heat and nothing else in the utility column, according to condos.ca. Hydro, water and air conditioning appear to be on you, so ask for the seller’s bills and add them when you compare with older Bay Street buildings that bundle everything. Ask the listing agent whether parking and a locker come with the suite, because many buyers here do not get either.

Condos.ca lists Duka Property Management as manager. With 690 suites and a hotel-style concierge model, the quality of management shows up every day, so read recent board minutes and ask current owners how move-ins, deliveries and elevator bookings are handled.

Life at Bay and Wellesley

This is a central, practical corner. Queen’s Park, the University of Toronto, the hospital district, Yorkville and Bloor Street are all a walk away, and the panel beside this review shows the transit options. That mix of employers nearby is a big part of why suites here are easy to lease.

Lanterra has built heavily around here. Its Murano and Burano towers sit a couple of blocks south on Bay, and its Wellesley on the Park project rose across Wellesley beside a new public park. That concentration of one developer is useful when you compare: you can walk through three Lanterra buildings in an afternoon and see how each one has aged.

The trade-off is traffic and noise. Bay and Wellesley is a busy intersection with buses, deliveries and late-evening foot traffic, and suites low on the Bay or Wellesley sides will hear it. If you sleep lightly, look at higher floors or the quieter faces of the tower, and visit on a weekday evening before you commit.

What The Britt costs

Condos.ca puts the building average at about $989 per square foot, which is at the upper end for the Bay Street Corridor. You are paying for a newer building, a limestone base and a corner that rents easily. Small suites always push the per-square-foot figure up, and The Britt has many of them.

Across eight current listings asking prices run from about $395,000 to about $1,228,000, with most two-bedrooms asking between roughly $699,000 and $799,000. Fees on those listings average about $0.86 per square foot, which is reasonable for a building with a pool and full concierge, but remember that heat is the only utility included.

Fee levels follow suite size closely. Across the current listings, monthly fees run from roughly $300 to about $935, and the two-bedrooms in the 700 to 799 square foot band mostly sit between about $600 and $650. That is a reasonable spread for a newer building with a full amenity floor.

Ten suites were listed for lease at the same time as the eight for sale, which tells you investors own a real share of the building. For a sale-by-sale check on a specific suite, I can pull the comparables through my building sold report.

Building specifications

Amenities at The Britt Condos

Condos.ca lists a concierge, gym, outdoor pool and party room, and Lanterra’s plans added a theatre room and a pet spa. An outdoor pool is seasonal in Toronto, so treat it as a summer bonus rather than a reason to buy.

Jatin’s honest take on The Britt Condos

The Britt Condos — 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.