beBloor Townhomes, 1379 Bloor St W: 96 Townhomes Off Bloor and Lansdowne

beBloor Townhomes is where I point buyers who want 1,000-plus square feet, parking included and Bloor Street at the end of the lane, for less than a house would cost. It is a 96-home townhouse complex from 2005 by Lorbeth Development Corporation, tucked along Merchant Lane behind Bloor West near Lansdowne. The homes are bigger than most condos nearby. The work is in checking a 20-year-old complex properly. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

A townhouse community behind Bloor Street

beBloor Townhomes is set back from Bloor itself, along Merchant Lane, with homes addressed at several Merchant Lane numbers as well as 1379 Bloor West. That layout is the point: you are a short walk from Bloor’s shops and the subway, but your front door faces a private lane rather than the main street.

Lorbeth Development Corporation built the townhomes and also gave its beBloor name to the condominium tower at 1369 Bloor Street West next door, which condos.ca lists separately. When you see beBloor on a listing, check which of the two it is: the tower and the townhomes are different corporations with different fees and rules.

With 96 homes, this is large for a townhouse complex. That means more owners to share the cost of the lanes, the garage and the exterior, and a more regular flow of resales, which helps when you need comparable sales.

The tower next door makes a useful comparison. Condos.ca lists beBloor Condos at 1369 Bloor West as a 15-storey, 238-suite building completed in 2006, with suites of roughly 400 to 860 square feet and heat and air conditioning in the fee. The townhomes give you more than 1,000 square feet and your own entrance; the tower gives you an elevator, smaller suites and a lower entry price. Same builder, same block, very different homes.

Bigger than a condo, smaller than a house

Condos.ca records homes of about 1,000 to 1,326 square feet. That is a two- or three-bedroom family-sized layout by downtown condo standards, at a price per square foot that is usually below new apartment condos nearby.

Condos.ca lists the complex as two storeys with rooftop decks, which suggests a stacked or back-to-back format, so check whether the home you are looking at has its own stairs to the roof, how many levels it has and where it sits in the stack. An upper home with a roof deck and a lower home with a terrace live very differently.

Ask for the floor plan and measure the bedrooms. Townhouse plans of this era sometimes trade bedroom size for a third bedroom, and the third room may be better as an office.

Stairs are the other thing to weigh. A townhouse of this type usually means climbing to bedrooms and again to the roof deck. That suits most couples and young families. It suits fewer downsizers, and it is worth being honest with yourself about it before you fall for the roof deck.

Parking in the garage, water in the fee

The fee covers common elements, building insurance, parking and water. Parking in the fee is the standout here, with an underground garage and visitor parking on top. On a stretch of Bloor where street parking is tight, that is worth real money every month.

Heat and hydro are separate, so each home has its own utilities to budget for, including the eventual replacement of its own furnace or heating unit. Ask the seller for a year of utility bills.

A complex with a garage carries one large shared cost that apartment buyers sometimes forget: the garage itself. The waterproofing membrane, drainage and ventilation all need periodic work, and in a townhouse complex there is no tower of suites to spread that cost across. Find the garage in the reserve fund study and see when the next major item is scheduled.

Bloor and Lansdowne, and what is changing

This stretch of Bloor near Lansdowne is a working main street, with grocery stores, cafés and the subway along it and residential side streets behind. The automatic panel on this page covers transit, walkability and nearby parks.

The area around Bloor and Lansdowne is in transition. A new Bloor-Lansdowne GO station has been proposed and covered by UrbanToronto, along with a development designed around it, and towers have been proposed further west near Bloor and Dundas, including a roughly 20-storey building at 1425 Bloor West. More density will bring more shops and more traffic, and some construction disruption along the way.

How to read prices at beBloor

There were no homes listed for sale when I checked, and condos.ca did not publish a building average per square foot. With 96 homes, though, there are usually enough resales over a year or two to build a fair picture.

The comparisons I would use are other condominium townhouses on the west end, two-bedroom-plus-den apartment condos nearby, and freehold row houses on the side streets off Bloor. A home here generally gives you more space than the condo and less upkeep than the freehold, with parking included.

Fee per square foot in townhouse complexes is usually lower than in apartment towers, because there are no elevators, concierge or pool to run. Do not let that alone sell you: the right measure is whether the fee and the reserve fund together cover the exterior work coming in the next decade. For actual sold figures, see my building sold report.

Building specifications

Amenities at beBloor Townhomes

There is no gym or party room, and that keeps the fee down. The amenities that matter here are practical: underground parking, visitor spaces for guests and a roof deck where barbecues are allowed.

Jatin’s honest take on beBloor Townhomes

beBloor Townhomes — frequently asked questions

Looking at Queen West, Trinity-Bellwoods, Kensington and Little Italy more broadly? Start with my Toronto community guide — the neighbourhoods, what each pocket is like, and how they compare.