The Park Club, 56 Forest Manor Rd: Emerald City’s Spa Tower Reviewed

The Park Club is the tall one on its block, and the building most people in Emerald City point to when they talk about amenities. Instead of a standard pool deck, it was sold on a Scandinavian-style spa with plunge pools, a steam room and an infrared sauna. It is also a building where suites rarely come up for sale, which makes pricing harder than it should be. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

The tallest building on its block

The Park Club is the 33-storey point tower at the northeast corner of the block bounded by Don Mills Road, George Henry Boulevard, Forest Manor Road and Helen Lu Road. UrbanToronto puts its height at about 107 metres, making it the tallest of the three buildings that went up together on the block, alongside the 13-storey Colours of Emerald City and the 24-storey Fifth on the Park.

WZMH Architects designed all three, and the whole block was excavated at once over a shared underground parking structure. That shared garage is worth understanding before you buy, because it usually means a cost-sharing agreement between the corporations for the garage, ramps and any shared systems.

The developer is a point where sources differ in wording rather than substance. UrbanToronto’s project page lists Almadev, while news coverage from the sales period describes an ELAD Canada subsidiary, and Emerald City as a whole was marketed by ELAD Canada. The year differs too: UrbanToronto lists completion in 2018, and condos.ca gives 2019, the year the corporation was registered.

The spa is the reason to choose this tower

Most towers in this area offer a gym and a party room. The Park Club was built around a spa: a series of Scandinavian-inspired plunge pools, a steam room, an infrared sauna, heated stone benches, showers and individual change rooms, with an outdoor Zen terrace and a meditation room. Condos.ca also lists an indoor pool and sauna, along with a gym, guest suites, a party room and barbecue permission.

For daily life, that package suits people who will actually use hot-and-cold bathing as part of their week. It replaces a spa membership for some owners. It also carries a cost: water features, saunas and steam rooms are among the most expensive amenities to maintain and eventually replace, so look closely at how the reserve fund study treats them.

The arrival is part of the pitch too. The building was marketed with a roundabout entry and a lobby with 24-hour concierge service.

Suites: compact plans in a tall tower

Condos.ca lists suites from about 492 to 926 square feet. That is mostly one-bedroom, one-plus-den and two-bedroom territory, with nothing in the large family range. Sales coverage at the time highlighted efficient one-bedroom-plus-den layouts, including a plan under 600 square feet with two bathrooms, which is the sort of layout that works well for a roommate or a home office.

In a 33-storey tower, floor and orientation make a large difference. Upper suites sit well above the 13- and 24-storey buildings beside it, while lower suites may look straight at those neighbours. In a block of three towers this close together, privacy and light can vary a lot from one stack to the next. Walk the suite, check the view from the window, and compare it with what the listing photos suggest.

Watch the building name when you search. Condos.ca also lists a separate entry called The Park Club Condos at 48 and 50 Forest Manor Road, a 265-suite, 33-storey building under TSCC-2697. I could not confirm from published sources how the two relate, so compare listings by address and corporation number, TSCC-2721 for this building, not by name.

Living in Emerald City

Emerald City is a master-planned community in the Parkway Forest area, south of Fairview Mall and Don Mills subway station. Beyond the towers, it brought the rebuilt Parkway Forest Community Centre, with a gym, running track, rooftop garden space, a YMCA-run daycare and an aquatic centre with an outdoor pool. The automatic panel on this page shows transit and nearby food and parks.

The neighbourhood is still filling in. Three final towers of 15, 24 and 33 storeys, The Peak, The Point and Lumina, broke ground on the next block in 2018. Expect a denser, busier community than the one early buyers moved into, with more shops and services at grade over time, and more traffic on Don Mills Road and Sheppard.

Pricing and fees: thin resale data, so read carefully

Condos.ca puts the building’s average at about $783 per square foot, the highest of the three Emerald City and Fairview Mall buildings I have reviewed: Colours of Emerald City next door sits at about $745 and Vivo Condos on Fairview Mall Drive at about $734. Part of that premium is the newer, taller tower and the spa; part is simply limited data.

When I checked, no suites were listed for sale and a handful were listed for lease. With so little resale activity, any single sale carries a lot of weight, and I would want to see the full run of recent sales, as aggregates, before agreeing to a price. I can prepare that in a building sold report.

On fees, condos.ca lists air conditioning, building insurance, common elements and heat as included, but not parking or water. Colours of Emerald City includes both. If you are comparing the two, add the cost of parking and water back to The Park Club before deciding which is cheaper to carry.

Building specifications

Amenities at The Park Club at Emerald City

This is a genuine wellness amenity floor, not a token gym. If you will use the plunge pools, steam room and sauna every week, it is worth paying for; if you will not, you are still funding them through your fee and the reserve fund.

Jatin’s honest take on The Park Club at Emerald City

The Park Club at Emerald City — frequently asked questions

Looking at Willowdale, Yonge & Sheppard, Bayview Village and North York Centre more broadly? Start with my Toronto community guide — the neighbourhoods, what each pocket is like, and how they compare.