Claremont Lofts, 62 Claremont St: Eight Hard Lofts in a 1930s Hall

Claremont Lofts has eight suites, and when one comes up, buyers who have been waiting for years call me the same week. It is a 1930s brick banquet hall on a residential side street between Queen and Dundas, converted into hard lofts in 2000, with volumes and ceiling heights you will not find in anything built new nearby. The challenge is not deciding whether you like it. It is being ready when a suite appears. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

From banquet hall to eight hard lofts

The building at 62 Claremont was put up in the 1930s as a banquet hall, and in the 1990s it had a second life as a music venue. Around 2000 it was converted into eight residential lofts, and the condominium was registered in February of that year.

That origin is the whole story here. A banquet hall is a big, open masonry box with tall clear spans, so the conversion did not have to squeeze suites into a grid of small factory floors. The result is a handful of large, irregular units, several of them on multiple levels, inside a brick shell that still reads as a hall from the street.

This is a true hard-loft conversion, not a new building with loft styling. You get brick, structure and volume that cannot be reproduced. You also get a near-century-old envelope, which brings its own maintenance questions, covered below.

Volume over floor plates

Condos.ca puts suite sizes between about 993 and 2,044 square feet. Over the years, listings here have shown multi-level layouts with living rooms open to very high ceilings, exposed brick pillars, glass-block windows, mezzanine-style bedrooms looking down into the main space, and private rooftop terraces on some suites.

Because the units were cut out of one large hall, no two are the same. Some feel like a townhouse with a garage entrance, others like a gallery with a bedroom tucked above. Ask for a floor plan and measured ceiling heights for the suite you are seeing, because the published square footage rarely captures how much space you are actually heating and living in.

Large open volumes are wonderful to live in and harder to furnish, light and keep comfortable. If you work from home or have children, look closely at how much true enclosed space the suite offers. Lofts like these often have one fully private bedroom and a second space that is open to the room below.

What an eight-suite corporation means

With eight owners, every decision and every bill is shared among very few people. That is a strength when the owners get along and keep the building in good order. It also means a roof replacement, masonry repointing or a garage repair falls on a handful of households rather than hundreds.

Condos.ca lists parking, an elevator, a sauna and a security system, with common elements, building insurance, water and parking covered by the fee. Heat and hydro are not listed as included, so expect separate bills, and ask what the heating and cooling costs have been in winter and summer for a space of this volume.

In a building this small, the reserve fund study and the board minutes are the most important documents you will read. Look at what the 2000 conversion replaced and what it kept, what has been redone since, and how large the reserve is per suite. Then compare it against the work the study says is coming.

Claremont Street, between Queen and Dundas

Claremont is a residential side street lined with older houses, a few blocks west of Bathurst. The building sits closer to Queen Street West than to Dundas, so the shops, restaurants and galleries of Queen West are a short walk south, while the street itself stays quiet.

Trinity Bellwoods Park, laid out in the old Garrison Creek ravine, is a few minutes’ walk west and is the neighbourhood’s back yard in summer. Ossington’s restaurant strip and Kensington Market are both close enough for an evening on foot.

The neighbourhood has changed a great deal since this conversion, with mid-rise condos replacing older commercial sites along Queen and Dundas. On Claremont itself the scale is still houses, and that low-rise context is a large part of why a suite here feels so different from a unit in one of the newer buildings a few blocks away.

What Claremont Lofts costs

Nothing was listed for sale or for rent at 62 Claremont when I wrote this, which is normal. With eight suites and long-term owners, a year can pass without a single listing.

Condos.ca shows a building average of about $1,174 per square foot. That is a high figure for a building of this age, and it reflects the rarity and the scale of these units more than finishes. Use it as a rough guide only; with so few transactions, one renovated suite can move the average a long way.

When a suite does come up, value it against other true hard lofts in Trinity-Bellwoods and Queen West, not against new condos at the same price per square foot. If you want to be ready, I can set up a watch on the building and pull its sales history through my building sold report.

Building specifications

Amenities at Claremont Lofts

There is no concierge, gym or party room here, and that is the point: the fee goes to the building, not to amenity space. An elevator and garage parking in an eight-suite conversion are real conveniences, especially for multi-level units and for anyone carrying groceries up from the car.

Jatin’s honest take on Claremont Lofts

Claremont Lofts — 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.