Harris Square, 21 Lawren Harris Sq: River City’s Final Pentagon

Harris Square is the last and smallest piece of River City, Urban Capital’s West Don Lands community, and it is the one I find most interesting architecturally. It is a 13-storey stack of pentagonal volumes beside Underpass Park, finished in 2021, with 154 suites that range from very small to genuinely large. If you want a design-forward building with a short walk to Corktown Common, it belongs on your list. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

The last phase of River City

River City is the cluster of sharply modern buildings Urban Capital built in the West Don Lands, starting after it brought Montreal’s Saucier + Perrotte to Toronto in 2009 and partnering with Toronto’s ZAS. The first three phases added 931 suites. Harris Square, the fourth and final phase, added 154 more on a five-sided site at Lawren Harris Square and Old Eastern Avenue.

The street, the square and the building are named for the Group of Seven painter Lawren Harris. The site is wrapped by the square on one side and Underpass Park, the skate and play park built under the Richmond and Adelaide ramps, on the other.

UrbanToronto credited the overall River City design to Saucier + Perrotte and ZAS, and its 2020 coverage of Harris Square described it extending the same design language. I have not found a separate architect credit just for this phase, so treat the River City team as the design lineage.

Stacked pentagons and a cantilevered base

The building takes its shape from the five-sided lot. It is a stack of irregular pentagonal volumes about 50 metres tall, with sections alternating between clear-glazed curtain wall with dark horizontal bands and balconied window wall with reflective glass and slim black mullions. Opaque and translucent yellow glass was planned at street level.

At the base, a cantilever of about five metres creates a sheltered, open ground floor and a view corridor between the square and Underpass Park. Most floors were designed with oversized balconies and terraces, which is a real advantage in a neighbourhood built around parks.

Shapes like this produce suites with angled walls and unusual corners. Some buyers love that; others find furniture placement harder. Look at the actual floor plan, not just the photos, before you commit.

From junior one-bedrooms to large terrace homes

The suite mix ran from junior one-bedrooms through one-bedrooms and two-bedroom-plus-dens to three-bedrooms. The current size data shows a range of about 359 to 1,789 square feet, wider than the roughly 359 to 1,553 quoted at launch, which suggests some suites were combined or that terrace homes were measured differently. Confirm the size on the floor plan in the status certificate package.

That spread matters. At one end are compact investor suites; at the other are some of the larger family-sized condos in the West Don Lands. Few buildings this size give you both, and it means the resale market here is not just one type of buyer.

The amenity floor reflects that mix. Urban Capital put a 2,000-square-foot fitness facility and yoga studio, a children’s playroom, a guest suite and a product library on the second floor, with an indoor lounge and terrace on the roof. A playroom and a guest suite are the kind of spaces families and downsizers actually use, and the guest suite in particular is worth a lot when your own suite has no spare bedroom.

The trade-off is that a 154-suite building has fewer owners to share the cost of those spaces than a 400-suite tower. That is part of why the fee per foot is higher here, and why I look at how the amenity spaces are staffed and booked before I tell a client the fee is fair.

West Don Lands, day to day

The West Don Lands were planned around parks, and Harris Square sits between two of them: Underpass Park beside the building and the 18-acre Corktown Common a short walk east. The Distillery District, the Canary District and the King East strip are all close, and the Don Valley trail system is right there for runners and cyclists.

The area is still filling in, with more development planned along the waterfront and around the coming Ontario Line stations. Expect a quieter, more residential feel than the King and Queen corridors, with fewer stores at your door. Transit and school details are in the panel beside this review.

Price per foot and the fee picture

The building average sits around $902 per square foot, toward the top of what I see for downtown east resale. You are paying for a 2021 building, a strong design reputation and a park-side location, and for some suites, large terraces.

Fees average about $1.48 per square foot on active listings, but that figure is pulled up by the largest suite on the market and by the high fixed cost of a small 154-suite corporation with a concierge and guest suite. Across three current listings, fees range from roughly $450 to $1,590 a month and cover only common elements, building insurance and water, so heat, cooling and hydro are extra.

Asking prices across those three listings run from about $410,000 to about $1.9 million. With so few listings at any time, a building average can swing a lot, so look at per-foot figures by suite type. My building sold report breaks that down.

Building specifications

Amenities at Harris Square Condos

The product library, where residents borrow things like ladders and drills, is a small but practical idea for people in compact suites; the rooftop lounge and terrace make up for the lack of a private yard.

Jatin’s honest take on Harris Square Condos

Harris Square Condos — frequently asked questions

Looking at Church–Wellesley, Corktown, Moss Park and Cabbagetown more broadly? Start with my Toronto community guide — the neighbourhoods, what each pocket is like, and how they compare.