Imperial Plaza, 111 St Clair Ave W: Living in the Old Imperial Oil Tower

Imperial Plaza is the building I point to when someone says every Toronto condo looks the same. It is the 1957 Imperial Oil headquarters on St. Clair West, a limestone International Style office tower that Camrost Felcorp converted into about 400 suites, with a Longo’s and an LCBO downstairs and one of the largest amenity packages in midtown. The trade-offs are real, and they start with the windows and the fee. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

A mid-century corporate headquarters, kept

Imperial Oil opened this tower in 1957 as its national headquarters, designed by Alvan Mathers of Mathers and Haldenby in the International Style, with a limestone facade over a welded steel frame. The company announced its move to Calgary in 2004, the offices closed around 2005, and the building sat empty for several years before it was sold in 2010.

Camrost Felcorp’s conversion kept the heritage at the centre. ERA Architects handled the heritage work, Onespace Unlimited led the conversion, DesignAgency did the interiors and Janet Rosenberg & Studio the landscape. The most famous survivors are York Wilson’s two murals, The Story of Oil, each about 32 by 21 feet, which now hang in the LCBO and Longo’s spaces at the base.

Heritage Toronto unveiled a plaque here in 2016, and condos.ca’s description refers to a Heritage Toronto Merit Award. If the building’s history is part of why you are buying, it is one of the most thoroughly documented conversions in the city.

Suites carved out of office floors

Converting an office tower changes what the suites feel like. The original floor plates were built for open offices rather than apartments, so layouts can differ from a purpose-built condo, and the building’s launch materials promised ceilings from 10 to 20 feet depending on the suite. Ask for the actual ceiling height of any suite you consider, because it varies widely.

Sizes run roughly 510 to 5,001 sq ft, a huge range. Most of the suites listed when I wrote this were one-bedroom and one-bedroom-plus-den plans in the 500 to 800 sq ft range, with two-bedrooms above that, and the top of the range points to a small number of very large suites. Condos.ca lists 23 storeys and the original office tower is usually described as 21, so the top levels may reflect the conversion; I could not confirm how the extra floors were added.

The facade is heritage limestone with a regular window grid, which is the main design trade-off. You do not get the floor-to-ceiling glass of a new tower, and with the original facade kept, outdoor space is not a given. Check whether a suite has a balcony or terrace, look at its window wall carefully and decide whether the light suits you.

A 40,000 square foot amenity floor

The amenities are the other reason people buy here. UrbanToronto lists about 40,000 sq ft of indoor and outdoor space, including music recording and rehearsal studios, a golf simulator, a games room, a full fitness club with change rooms, squash courts, yoga and aerobics studios, and a pool and hot tub.

Few midtown buildings come close to that list. The flip side is that 400 owners are paying to run and eventually replace all of it, including a pool and squash courts, and that shows up in the fee. If you will use the club, it can replace a gym membership; if you will not, you are subsidising other people’s squash games.

Groceries downstairs, construction next door

The base of the building holds a Longo’s urban market and an LCBO, both open since 2015. Being able to take an elevator down to a grocery store is the kind of daily convenience that is hard to price until you have lived with it. Yonge and St. Clair’s shops and restaurants are a short walk east, and the data panel on this page covers the subway and Walk Score.

The site around the tower is still filling in. Camrost Felcorp’s master plan added a rental tower at 101 St. Clair West, a third building replacing most of the former Deer Park United Church, and townhouses along Foxbar Road. Expect ongoing construction on parts of the block for some time, and check which direction a suite faces relative to the new buildings before you buy.

What Imperial Plaza costs

Condos.ca puts the building average at about $908 per square foot, Condos.ca averages for the St. Clair West neighbours I checked run from about $848 at 60 St. Clair West to about $1,268 at The Avenue, 155 St. Clair West, so Imperial Plaza sits toward the lower end. You are not paying a large premium for the heritage or the amenities, partly because the trade-offs, including the window grid and the fee, are priced in.

There were nine suites for sale and one for lease when I wrote this, a deep market by midtown standards. Asking prices on the listings I reviewed ranged from about $499,000 to about $1,049,000 at the top, with one-bedroom-plus-den suites mostly between about $520,000 and $750,000 and a two-bedroom near $929,000. Those are asking prices, not sale prices; the sold data panel on this page shows what has actually traded.

Monthly fees on those listings ranged from about $498 to $1,189, and the average across active listings works out to roughly $1.04 per square foot. That is high for a building of this size, and it reflects the amenity floor and the cost of maintaining a heritage tower. Condos.ca does not record what the fee includes, so get the budget and a breakdown before you compare it with anything else. For a value check on a specific suite, use my building sold report.

Building specifications

Amenities at Imperial Plaza

This is a resort-scale amenity package in a midtown address, built around a full fitness club with a pool and squash courts. Use it and the fee starts to make sense; ignore it and you are paying for a club you never visit.

Jatin’s honest take on Imperial Plaza

Imperial Plaza — frequently asked questions

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