One Bloor, 1 Bloor St E: Living on Top of Yonge and Bloor

One Bloor is the building most people picture when they think of Yonge and Bloor: the 76-storey tower with the curving glass balconies on the south-east corner. You are buying the address and the view, and you pay for both. The questions that matter are which floor, which direction and how much of the suite is actually usable. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

A decade-long corner, and a tower of curves

The corner sat as low two-storey retail for years while different developers tried to build on it. A 60-storey plan was floated in 2005, and in 2007 another developer bought the site and proposed an 80-storey hotel and condo tower. The old buildings came down in 2008, Great Gulf took over in 2009, and construction started in 2011.

The tower topped out in 2015 and was completed at the end of 2017. At about 257 metres to the roof, it was the second-tallest residential tower in Canada when it opened. Tucker Hi-Rise was the main contractor.

Hariri Pontarini wrapped the tower in fritted glass balconies that pinwheel around the floor plates, which is what gives it the undulating look from the street. The roof slopes rather than ending flat, which sets it apart from the boxy towers around it.

Those curves have a practical side. Many suites have balconies that change depth along their length, and some rooms have a curved or angled glass line. That is beautiful in photos and works well for living rooms, but measure where furniture goes. Two suites with the same square footage can feel quite different.

Suites run from about 535 square feet up to roughly 5,741 square feet, so the building spans everything from investor one-bedrooms to full-floor-style penthouses. The two-storey penthouses at the top were still being marketed in 2020, which tells you how narrow the buyer pool is at that end.

Inside the building, the amenity levels and the residential lobby are separate from the retail, but they share the address and some of the activity. If you value a calm arrival, look at how the residential entrance is separated from the shoppers and restaurant queues at street level.

The podium and the amenity levels

The six-storey podium holds about 100,000 square feet of retail. Nordstrom Rack opened its first Canadian store here in 2018 and closed it in 2023, and Chick-fil-A opened its first standalone Canadian restaurant at street level in 2019. Ask what the current retail plan is, since the commercial space is a separate matter from the residential corporation.

Above the retail, the sixth and seventh floors hold more than 27,000 square feet of indoor amenities and about 19,000 square feet of outdoor terrace. Cecconi Simone designed the interiors and Janet Rosenberg and Studio designed the seventh-floor terrace. Condos.ca lists an indoor pool, gym, yoga studio, billiards and table tennis, party room and barbecues.

Daily life at Yonge and Bloor

You are directly on the busiest subway interchange in the city, with Yorkville across the street and the Bloor Street shops at your door. That is the whole point of living here, and it comes with crowds, street noise at the lower floors and a busy lobby.

With 732 suites, this is a large building. Expect a meaningful share of leased suites and a steady flow of move-ins, and check the panel on this page for the owner and renter mix and transit details.

What to look for when you tour

Height does most of the work in this building, so tour suites on different floors if you can. Below the height of the surrounding towers, you are looking at neighbours; above it, the view opens up across the city and the lake to the south. That break point is where prices change most.

Wind is the second thing to check. On a tower this tall, balconies on the upper floors are windy for much of the year, and the curved fritted glass changes how sheltered each section is. Ask the seller how often they actually use the balcony.

Third, time the elevators. With 732 suites and a busy amenity level, morning and evening waits matter. Visit at 8:30 a.m. on a weekday and see for yourself, and ask how move-ins are booked. The elevator records in the panel on this page give you the history.

Price per square foot, and what you pay for height

One Bloor averages about $1,037 per square foot, among the highest numbers in this part of the city. Within the building, the spread is wide: low-floor one-bedrooms trade much closer to the surrounding towers, while high floors with south or west views carry a serious premium.

Fees across current listings average about $0.89 per square foot. For a tower with this much amenity space, that is reasonable, and it includes heat, air conditioning, water and parking where a suite has a space. Compare that with Casa II a block east, which averages about $1.20 per square foot.

For the largest suites, the asking range is not useful, since only a handful trade each year. Those deals depend on the specific floor, view and finish, and you want sold data, not listings, to judge them.

At the time of writing there were eight active listings asking from $595,000 to $1,258,000. One-bedrooms and one-plus-dens ranged from $595,000 to $949,000, and two-bedrooms from $859,000 to $1,258,000, with monthly fees between $525 and $1,078. My building sold report shows what has actually traded.

Building specifications

Amenities at One Bloor

The two amenity floors are the reason the fee is worth paying here: a pool, a full gym and a large landscaped terrace above the noise of the intersection. In a 732-suite building, expect them to be busy at peak hours.

Jatin’s honest take on One Bloor

One Bloor — 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.