32 Camden Street Lofts: An 87-Suite Sorbara Boutique Off Spadina

32 Camden is the building I show buyers who want King West without living in a 40-storey tower. It has 87 suites on 12 floors, a weathering-steel screen on the front, and a quiet one-way side street outside the door. The trade-off is scarcity: so few suites come up that you have to be ready when one does. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

A small building on purpose

The Sorbara Group first brought 32 Camden forward in 2010 as a 10-storey, 64-suite live/work building, with ten three-bedroom suites in the mix. By the time it was built it had grown to 12 storeys and 87 suites, which is still tiny by downtown standards. Construction started in the fall of 2011, with a below-grade garage dug under the building, and it was registered in May 2013.

The scale is the whole pitch. With fewer than 90 suites, you share the elevators and the gym with a few dozen neighbours, not a few hundred. In practice that means less waiting, fewer move-ins clogging the service elevator, and a board that owners can actually get to know.

The other side of small is that every repair is shared among fewer owners. A $500,000 project costs each suite in an 87-unit building far more than it would in a 600-unit tower. That is why the reserve fund matters even more here than it does elsewhere.

Small buildings also tend to turn over slowly, which is good for the community feel and less good if you are waiting for a specific suite type. If you want a large suite here, tell your agent early and be ready to move quickly.

The steel screen and the Core Architects design

Core Architects designed the building, and the original plan described a decorative steel screen hung across the front façade and cantilevered out from the frontage. The steel was meant to rust and weather over time, giving the building an organic, aged look and helping to cool the suites behind it.

When it was proposed, then-councillor Adam Vaughan praised it as good infill for the blocks between Spadina, Front, Bathurst and Queen. A forum resident at the time pointed out that it would rise a few storeys above Camden Lofts across the street, and worried about losing the small buildings that give the street its character. Both points still describe the block: Camden is a narrow street of mid-rise lofts and converted warehouses, not a canyon of towers.

Sorbara also built Zen Lofts next door at 42 Camden, so this is a developer that knows the street. Its other downtown projects include Sixty Loft, 400 Wellington West and Brewery Lofts.

Layouts: from studio to family-sized

Suites run from roughly 416 sq ft to about 1,365 sq ft. The small end is studios and compact one-bedrooms; the large end, together with the three-bedroom suites in the original plan, is the kind of space that is genuinely hard to find in a boutique King West building.

Because the building was pitched as live/work, some layouts suit a home office better than the typical tower one-bedroom does. I would still look at each floor plan individually. In small buildings, the corner and top-floor suites often differ a lot from the stack below them, and the difference shows up in price.

The building is marketed as lofts, but it is a 2013 new build, not a warehouse conversion. Expect concrete construction and modern windows rather than timber beams and brick. Ask the listing agent for the actual ceiling height of the suite you are viewing; I could not confirm a building-wide figure.

Daily life on Camden Street

Camden is one of the quieter streets in the King–Spadina grid, which is the point. You are a block from the restaurants and nightlife of King West and the shops on Queen West, but the street itself is mostly residential lofts and small offices.

Listing data also shows a restaurant at grade. Street-level food is handy, but it can bring kitchen exhaust, deliveries and late-evening noise to the lower floors. If you are looking at a suite on the second or third floor, visit at dinner time and again on a weekend night before you firm up.

The neighbourhood keeps changing. Much of the block between Spadina and Bathurst has been rebuilt with mid-rise condos over the past 15 years, and more proposals keep coming. Before you buy, check the City of Toronto development applications map for anything planned next door that could affect your view or your light. Transit, schools and parks are in the data panel on this page.

What 32 Camden costs, and why comparables are scarce

The building average sits around $862 per square foot. That puts it a little below Camden Lofts across the street at about $943 and Quad Lofts on Brant at about $950, and above the older 50 Camden at about $792. For a 2013 concrete building with heat and air conditioning in the fee, I think that is fair.

The harder problem is volume. With 87 suites, only one or two come up for sale at any time, and right now there is one listing. That makes it difficult to price a suite from comparables inside the building alone. I usually blend recent trades here with the boutique buildings nearby on Camden, Brant and Portland, adjusted for age and fee inclusions.

Fees include heat, air conditioning, water, building insurance and common elements, but not parking. Two utilities that many King West towers meter separately are already in your monthly cost, which makes the fee easier to budget. For the building’s actual sold prices and rents, see the data panel or my building sold report.

Building specifications

Amenities at 32 Camden Street Lofts

This is a deliberately short list: a gym, a party room with games, bike storage and a garage. There is no pool or concierge to fund, which helps keep fees in check in a building this small, but if you want a 24-hour desk for parcels, this is not that building.

Jatin’s honest take on 32 Camden Street Lofts

32 Camden Street Lofts — frequently asked questions

Looking at King West, Liberty Village and CityPlace more broadly? Start with my Toronto community guide — the neighbourhoods, what each pocket is like, and how they compare.