Howard Park Residences, 36 Howard Park Ave: Terraces and Geothermal

Howard Park Residences is the building I show buyers who want Roncesvalles without a tower. It is eight storeys, 81 suites, designed by RAW with stepped terraces and planters, and it sits on a block that used to be auto shops and a propane station. It is also a small building with a geothermal system and a sister building next door, and both of those facts matter when you buy. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

Phase one of a two-building block

This is the east building of a two-phase project Triumph started marketing in late 2011. The address you search is 36 Howard Park, with 81 suites; the west building, sold as Howard Park 2, adds another 96 suites and was topping out in 2017. The two share a forecourt and entry court designed by Ferris + Associates, and the City’s project database describes a glazed link between the main volumes.

Why it matters to you: when people quote a suite count of 96 or 177 for “Howard Park Residences”, they are mixing up the phases. Make sure the status certificate, budget and reserve fund study you are reading belong to TSCC-2604, and ask what is shared with the neighbouring corporation and how those shared costs are split.

Triumph was a long-time contractor for other developers before building under its own name. Its first project was Roncesvalles Lofts at 25 Ritchie Avenue, just north of this site, so the firm built this one in a neighbourhood it already knew.

A triangle, terraces and planters

The site is a wedge, and RAW Design (Roland Rom Colthoff’s firm) leaned into it. The building has a brick base of about five storeys, then steps back in diagonal terraces on the top three floors, and the upper suites in the second phase are rotated 45 degrees so they angle toward the skyline. The footprint follows the property lines, which is why so many plans here are not simple rectangles.

The other design idea was planting. At launch the architect explained that every suite would have access to at least one planter, with vines meant to grow over the façade, and the roof is a green roof that rises toward the middle of the site to cut shadows on neighbours. In practice this gives you a building with more outdoor space per suite than most mid-rises, and some upper units with two or three glazed sides.

Along Howard Park itself, the plan called for street-facing two-storey townhouse units with their own front doors, roughly every 20 feet, to match the scale of the houses across the street.

Layouts, ceilings and the geothermal question

Suites run from roughly 475 to 1,394 sq ft by condos.ca’s range, from one-bedrooms through two-bedroom-plus-den plans and a small number of larger units. One profile puts about six in ten suites at one-bedroom or one-bedroom-plus-den. Marketing materials gave 9-foot ceilings, hardwood floors and stone counters as the standard package.

The project was marketed with geothermal heating and cooling, which is unusual for a building this size. Geothermal can be cheap to run, but it is a specialized system, and sources disagree on how it is billed: condos.ca says heat and air conditioning are in your fee, while another building profile says only water is. Before you firm up, ask how heating and cooling are metered and charged, who services the system, and what the reserve fund study says about it.

The daily reality of this corner of Roncesvalles

Howard Park Avenue is the connector between Dundas West and High Park, and this block sits in the gap between Roncesvalles Village and the Dundas West and Bloor junction. You walk south to the Roncesvalles strip for coffee, groceries and restaurants, and north-west to the subway and the UP Express. High Park is close enough to be your everyday walk.

The street is mostly two- and three-storey houses, with a 1970s apartment building across the road, so this is not a condo canyon. That is the appeal, and also the reason the building has a modest amenity package and no pool: the developer said at launch that residents would use the neighbourhood’s gyms and the park.

Pricing: small building, few trades

Condos.ca puts the building average at about $934 per square foot. Strata.ca, working from its recent sample, shows roughly $1,006 for one-bedroom-plus-den suites and about $1,033 for two-bedrooms, and ranks the building near the top third of Roncesvalles-area condos on price per foot. In an 81-suite building with only a handful of sales a year, one terrace suite can pull the average, so treat both numbers as a range rather than a target.

There was only one active listing when I checked, so I cannot give you a current asking range. The same profile recorded just four sales and five leases over the past year, with typical ownership of about five to six years before resale. If you want in, set up an alert and be ready, or see my building sold report for the recorded trades.

On fees, compare total monthly cost. If heat and cooling really are in the fee here, that is worth a lot in a Toronto winter; if they are billed separately through the geothermal system, add that back before comparing against a neighbouring building.

Building specifications

Amenities at Howard Park Residences

This is a lean package: concierge, a gym, a party room, media and meeting rooms, and a landscaped courtyard, with no pool. For most owners the real amenities are the private terraces and High Park, and lower common costs are the trade-off.

Jatin’s honest take on Howard Park Residences

Howard Park Residences — frequently asked questions

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