The Point at Emerald City, 1800 Sheppard Ave E: A Pool and Flex Dens

The Point is the building I point to when a buyer near Don Mills wants a pool without paying downtown prices. It is a 24-storey ELAD Canada tower that shares its podium, and its pool, with the taller Peak next door, and it was planned with flex spaces that can actually hold a bed. The shared setup is both its best feature and the thing you need to understand before you buy. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

The eighth tower in a planned community

Emerald City is ELAD Canada’s master-planned community east of Don Mills Road, built out over years on the Parkway Forest lands. At full build-out it is planned for more than 3,000 homes, mixing condo towers, townhomes, purpose-built rentals and replacement rental housing. The Point was announced as the eighth tower.

That history shapes daily life. You are not buying a lone tower on an arterial; you are buying into a district that was designed with improved sidewalks, new planting, street-level retail and public art by Douglas Coupland at the Sheppard Avenue entrance. The Parkway Forest Community Centre, designed by Diamond Schmitt, opened in 2016 with its own aquatic centre.

The design team was WZMH Architects, with interiors by Tanner Hill Associates and landscaping by Ferris + Associates. WZMH is one of Toronto’s long-established architecture firms, which is a reasonable signal for the building envelope, though no substitute for the reserve fund study.

ELAD Canada has been active here since 1997 and is part of the international Elad Group. Its later Toronto work includes the redevelopment of the Galleria Shopping Centre lands in the west end, a master-planned community on a similar scale, so this is a developer that builds districts rather than single towers.

Sharing a podium with The Peak

The Point sits on a shared podium with The Peak, a 33-storey tower in the same Block C of Emerald City. The two towers share an amenity space, and the cost of maintaining it was planned to be split between them.

The upside is scale: two towers can support an indoor pool and hot tub that a 279-suite building could rarely carry on its own. The catch is governance. When two corporations share facilities, there is usually a shared facilities agreement setting out who pays what, who decides on repairs and how disputes are handled. Ask for it, read it, and check how the cost split is calculated.

It also means more people using the gym and pool than the suite count of The Point alone would suggest. Visit at a busy time, on a weekday evening or a weekend morning, before you count the pool as part of your routine.

Flex dens that work as bedrooms

Suites range from about 564 to 984 square feet, covering one-bedrooms through two-bedroom-plus-den plans. The launch material made a point of its flex spaces: rooms sized for a secondary sleeping area rather than the narrow den that only fits a desk.

For buyers, that is a practical difference. A one-bedroom-plus-flex can house a child, a guest or a home office with a door, and a two-plus-flex suits a small family. When you view a suite, check whether the flex room has a window and a door. Those two details decide whether a tenant or a future buyer will treat it as a bedroom.

There are no bachelor suites; the launch coverage said the developer dropped them from this tower and raised the share of larger family plans compared with earlier Emerald City buildings. The same coverage mentioned three-bedroom plans, while condos.ca shows the size range topping out just under 1,000 square feet, so confirm the actual bedroom count of any larger suite you view.

Life in Emerald City

The district is served by the Sheppard subway line, which opened in 2002, and has street-level shops built into the newer towers. It is a residential community rather than a destination, which suits people who want quieter evenings than Yonge Street offers. Highway 401 and the Don Valley Parkway are close for drivers.

Expect continued change. Emerald City was planned in phases, and the wider Sheppard and Don Mills area has a large amount of new housing coming. That brings more retail and services over time, along with construction and more resale competition from newer towers. Transit, schools and walkability details are in the data panel on this page.

What The Point is asking and what you pay monthly

When I checked, five suites were for sale, asking from $474,990 to $649,998, and one was listed for lease. The building average sat around $744 per square foot, which is close to the roughly $700 per square foot the building launched at in 2017. In other words, resale pricing has not run far ahead of the original developer pricing, which is worth knowing whether you are buying to live or to hold.

Monthly fees on those listings ranged from $659 to $814, about $0.97 per square foot. That is on the high side for a 2022 tower, and the pool and the shared amenity costs are part of the reason. Condos.ca does not show what the fee includes for this building, so confirm in the status certificate whether heat, water, cooling and parking are covered or billed separately.

A fee near a dollar per square foot is not automatically bad if it buys a well-run pool and a healthy reserve fund. It does affect your carrying costs and your resale pitch, so compare total monthly cost, not just price. For help comparing suites here with nearby options, book a call.

Building specifications

Amenities at The Point at Emerald City

This is a full family package: an indoor pool and hot tub open year-round, a children’s play room, a screening room, guest suites and an outdoor terrace with barbecues. Because the amenities are shared with The Peak, they are larger than a building of this size would normally have, and busier.

Jatin’s honest take on The Point at Emerald City

The Point 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.