Local at Fort York, 50 Bruyeres Mews: Onni’s Mid-Rise With a Full Fee

Local at Fort York is the building I show people who like the new Fort York neighbourhood but do not want to live 40 floors up. It is a 2016 Onni mid-rise, a 15-storey tower stepping down to a seven-storey podium, and its fee covers more than most of its neighbours’ do. The suites are small, though, and that is the real decision here. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

Onni’s mid-rise in a neighbourhood of towers

Local is one piece of Onni’s Fort York community, a master-planned cluster of roughly 1,200 homes on the lands south of the historic fort. Its neighbour, Garrison at the Yards at 20 Bruyeres Mews, is a 28-storey, 412-suite Onni tower completed in 2015. Local is the smaller, quieter sibling.

The building is a 15-storey glass-and-brick tower on the west side of the site with a seven-storey podium to the east. UrbanToronto’s database puts the height at about 52 metres. Condos.ca lists 13 floors, so the storey count depends on who you ask; I use the 15 from the project database, which tracks the architect’s drawings.

Page + Steele / IBI Group did the architecture, NAK Design Strategies did the landscape and Onni handled interiors in-house. The brick on the lower floors is a deliberate nod to the fort next door, and it helps the building read as part of a neighbourhood rather than another glass tower.

Small suites, so plan carefully

Condos.ca lists suites from about 375 to 1,400 sq ft, and the current listings tell you where most of them sit: four of the six for sale are one-bedrooms or one-plus-dens in the 500 to 599 sq ft range. Two-bedrooms appear, but in the 700 to 899 sq ft range rather than family sizes.

In a suite under 600 sq ft, layout matters more than the number on the floor plan. Look for a den with a door or at least a wall that can take a desk, a kitchen that does not eat the living room, and a balcony that is usable rather than decorative. Two suites of identical size here can live very differently.

If you need a second bedroom you can actually put a guest in, look at the 700-plus sq ft plans and expect to pay a clear premium for them. They are the ones that hold value best in a building like this, because the supply of them is limited.

A fee that covers heat, cooling and parking

Condos.ca lists the fee here as covering common elements, heat, air conditioning, water, parking and building insurance. For a 2016 building, that is a generous list. Many downtown towers from the same era put heating and cooling on a suite meter, which makes their fee look lower than it really is.

On current listings the fee works out to about $0.95 per sq ft. That is not cheap in raw terms, but once you account for heat and cooling being included, the comparison with a building at $0.70 plus a monthly HVAC bill gets much closer. Hydro for lights and appliances is still yours.

Parking being listed as included does not mean every suite has a space. Smaller suites in buildings of this era were often sold without one. Check the status certificate for the parking and locker units attached to the suite before you count on either.

Living in the Fort York neighbourhood

Bruyeres Mews and Grand Magazine Street sit in the newest part of the downtown west end, between the old fort and the lake, with King West, Liberty Village and CityPlace all within walking distance. Onni and other developers have built it out over the past decade, and today it is a largely finished neighbourhood of towers and townhouses.

Amenities like a seventh-floor lounge overlooking the neighbourhood, a rooftop deck and a gym cover the basics. For groceries, restaurants and transit, the data panel on this page lays out what is close and how long it takes to get there.

Expect the realities of a dense new neighbourhood: busy sidewalks, plenty of investor-owned suites and slow traffic at rush hour. In exchange you get one of the few mid-rise buildings in this pocket, with a lower density of neighbours per elevator than the towers around it.

Price per square foot and what listings ask

Condos.ca puts the building average at about $1,015 per sq ft. That is a strong figure for a 2016 building, and it reflects how small most of the suites are: compact one-bedrooms always price higher per foot than larger plans.

When I wrote this there were six suites for sale and five for lease. The sale listings ranged from roughly $430,000 to $530,000 for one-bedrooms and one-plus-dens in the 500 to 599 sq ft range, and from about $760,000 to $775,000 for two-bedroom plans between 700 and 899 sq ft. Fees across those listings ran from roughly $445 to $785 a month.

Asking prices are not sale prices. With six one-bedroom-type suites competing at once, buyers have leverage, and I would expect the closing figures to come in below the top of that range. The data panel shows what has actually sold.

If you want to know what a specific suite here should trade for, I can pull the closest comparables in the building through my building sold report.

Building specifications

Amenities at Local at Fort York

The package is practical rather than flashy: a gym, a games room, guest suites for visitors you cannot fit in a 550 sq ft one-bedroom, and a podium-level lounge with a view over the neighbourhood. There is no pool, which keeps the operating budget sensible.

Jatin’s honest take on Local at Fort York

Local at Fort York — frequently asked questions

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