Palace Pier, 2045 Lake Shore Blvd W: Big Suites, All-In Fees, 1978 Bones

Palace Pier was the tallest residential building in Canada when it opened in 1978, and it still feels like a different era: big suites, a cross-shaped tower with views in several directions, and a fee that covers almost everything including your hydro. That fee is what scares buyers off, and it is also the number most people misread. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

A tower built on a famous site

The name is not marketing. The land at the mouth of the Humber River once held the Palace Pier, a lakefront entertainment pier promoted in the late 1920s as a palace of fun. Only part of it was ever built; the first section opened in 1941 and became one of Toronto’s best-known big band dance halls before a fire destroyed it in 1963.

The condominium tower that replaced it was designed by Edward I. Richmond and completed in 1978, when it was the tallest residential structure in the country. Its cruciform plan, a cross shape in plan view, gives each arm of the building open views in several directions rather than one long wall of suites facing a neighbour.

An Etobicoke Historical Board plaque on the Waterfront Trail marks what remains of the old dance hall. Palace Place, the sister tower at 1 Palace Pier Court, followed in 1991 and is a separate condominium corporation with its own board and budget.

Buyers often treat the two towers as interchangeable, and they are not. Palace Place is thirteen years younger, with its own reserve fund, its own fee structure and its own history of capital projects. If you are choosing between them, compare the two status certificates side by side rather than assuming the older tower is automatically the riskier one.

Suites from another era

Suite sizes start around 888 sq ft and run to about 3,303 sq ft. There are no 450 sq ft one-bedrooms here; even the smallest plans are larger than many two-bedrooms in newer Humber Bay Shores towers. That is a big part of why the building appeals to downsizers leaving a house.

The cruciform shape helps the layouts. Each arm of the cross looks outward rather than across at a neighbour, and the views take in the downtown skyline, Lake Ontario and, on clear days, the far shore toward the Niagara Escarpment.

The trade-off is age. Interiors in a building this old vary widely, from carefully renovated to largely original, so you are often buying space and a view and then budgeting for kitchens, bathrooms and flooring. Ask what has been updated and when, and whether the work required board approval.

An amenity package from the club era

Buildings of this generation were sold as full-service living, and the listing data for Palace Pier reflects that: concierge, a security guard and security system, guest suites, a sauna and a tennis court, with an underground parking garage. A tennis court is something you will rarely find in a newer tower on this waterfront.

The full recreation list is longer than what I can confirm from the sources I used, so ask management for the current amenity schedule and booking rules. Whatever is on it, the facilities are as old as the building, and courts, change rooms and mechanical rooms all eventually need major work. The reserve fund study tells you where each one sits in its life cycle.

The location at the mouth of the Humber

Palace Pier sits at the eastern edge of Humber Bay Shores, right where the Humber meets the lake. The Martin Goodman Trail, the Humber Bay Butterfly Habitat, marinas and a yacht club are all next door, and the Humber Loop and the Gardiner Expressway are close, which makes the drive downtown short.

Because it is at the gateway rather than in the middle of the newer towers, the building feels a little apart from the busiest part of Humber Bay Shores. You get the lake and the trail without being surrounded by construction, though the redevelopment further west along Lake Shore will change the neighbourhood around you over the next decade. Transit and walkability details are in the data panel.

The fee is high, and almost everything is in it

The building average sits around $634 per square foot in the data I am working from, well below the newer Humber Bay Shores towers. That discount reflects age, older interiors and the fee, and it is the reason value buyers look here.

Fees are the headline. Across current listings they run from about $1,140 a month for a one-bedroom to over $3,800, which works out to well over $1 per square foot. But the inclusions are almost complete: heat, hydro, air conditioning, water, cable TV, insurance and parking. When you compare with a newer building, add back hydro, heat and parking on the other side before deciding which is more expensive.

There are eleven suites for sale and none for rent as I write this. Across the listings, asks run from about $729,000 to roughly $1.75 million, with two- and three-bedroom suites clustering between about $940,000 and $1.25 million.

No suites listed for rent is also telling. Large suites carrying fees this size rarely pencil out as rentals, so the buyers you are competing with, and the buyers you will eventually sell to, are mostly people who plan to live in the building themselves.

Building specifications

Amenities at Palace Pier

A staffed front desk, security, guest suites, a sauna and a tennis court give the building the full-service feel it was built for. The cost of staffing and maintaining all of that is part of the fee you see.

Jatin’s honest take on Palace Pier

Palace Pier — frequently asked questions

Looking at Humber Bay Shores, Mimico, the Queensway and central Etobicoke more broadly? Start with my Toronto community guide — the neighbourhoods, what each pocket is like, and how they compare.