Paintbox Condos, 225 Sackville St: Living Above Regent Park’s Arts Centre

Paintbox is the building that told Toronto Regent Park was changing. Daniels built it in 2012 on top of a 60,000 square foot arts and cultural centre at Dundas and Sackville, with a charcoal tower picked out in coloured panels and a roof striped with light. It is a compact-suite building with an all-inclusive style fee, and it is worth understanding both before you buy. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

A condo built on top of an arts centre

Paintbox was built together with the Regent Park Arts and Cultural Centre, a 60,000 square foot facility on the south side of Dundas, just west of Sackville. The centre holds a large auditorium that can be divided into up to three rooms, rehearsal and performance spaces for dance and theatre companies, learning space and offices for arts groups, and flexible office space that was planned for the Centre for Social Innovation.

For residents, that means the base of the building is busy in a good way: performances, classes and community events, rather than a blank lobby and a parking ramp. It also means more foot traffic at your front door than in a typical residential tower, which some people love and others do not.

The original plan called for a café-lounge at the Dundas and Sackville corner, with George Brown College’s culinary program providing catering for the complex. Check what operates there today; ground-floor uses in buildings like this tend to change over the years.

Diamond Schmitt’s coloured tower

Diamond + Schmitt Architects, with project architect Jennifer Mallard, clad the tower in dark charcoal panels and set brightly coloured spandrels against them, which is where the name comes from. The roof was designed to be striped with colour and lit with LEDs, so the building reads from a distance at night.

A notch in the north face separates the east-facing suites from the west-facing ones, which helps with privacy between neighbours. The corridors on each floor were designed with views toward the lake and the Distillery District, a small touch that makes the hallways feel less like a hotel.

This is not a building that blends in, and that was the point. When it was going up, UrbanToronto framed Paintbox as a sign that Regent Park was turning from a place people avoided into a destination. More than a decade later, the new buildings on the surrounding blocks show how far that has gone.

Compact suites and what the fee covers

Condos.ca shows suites from about 392 to 924 square feet. There are no large family suites here; the mix is studios, one-bedrooms, one-plus-dens and compact two-bedrooms. That makes Paintbox a natural first purchase and a common investor building.

The fee includes common elements, heat, air conditioning, water, building insurance and parking, according to condos.ca. Across active listings it works out to about $1.03 per square foot, which looks high next to newer buildings. Most of that gap is the inclusions: heating and cooling a glass-and-panel suite yourself is not cheap.

Small suites are where layout matters most. In a 450 square foot one-bedroom, a wasted corridor or an awkward bedroom without a window can make the space feel much smaller. I would choose a squarer plan with a real bedroom over a slightly larger one that is mostly hallway, because that is what the next buyer will do too.

Parking being listed in the fee does not mean every suite has a space. Confirm whether the suite you want comes with parking or a locker, and what the fee would be without one. Condos.ca also flags a pet restriction, so read the declaration and rules before buying with a dog.

Regent Park around you

The revitalization has reshaped the blocks around Paintbox since it opened, replacing older Toronto Community Housing towers with a mix of new market condos, rental and community housing, parks and shops. The redevelopment is phased and still continuing, so expect construction on nearby blocks for some time.

Construction nearby is both the risk and the opportunity. In the short term it can mean noise, closed sidewalks and a changing view from your window. Over the longer term, each finished phase has added services and street life that make the neighbourhood easier to live in. If you are buying a suite for its view, ask what is planned on the sites it faces.

Paintbox sits on Dundas, which is the main east-west street through the neighbourhood, with Cabbagetown to the north and Corktown and the Distillery to the south. Other condos in the revitalization area, including One Park Place and One Cole, offer useful comparisons. The panel on this page covers transit, schools and nearby parks.

Price per square foot and what is listed now

The building average on condos.ca is about $822 per square foot. That reflects a 14-year-old building made up of compact suites, where buyers pay for location and finishes more than raw area.

At the time of writing seven suites were for sale, asking from $448,000 to $735,000, a range that runs from one-bedrooms to two-bedrooms. Monthly fees on those listings ran from $539 to $785. Two more suites were listed for lease.

Seven listings in a 282-suite building is a fair amount of supply, so buyers have room to compare. Because the fee includes most utilities, compare Paintbox’s total monthly cost against a newer building’s fee plus its heating, cooling and water bills rather than the fee alone.

Building specifications

Amenities at Paintbox Condos

The in-building amenity list is short: concierge, party, media and meeting rooms, and Beanfield Fibre. The real amenity is the arts centre downstairs and the parks and recreation facilities the revitalization has added around the building. If you want a pool or a large gym inside your own building, look elsewhere.

Jatin’s honest take on Paintbox Condos

Paintbox 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.