Park Lofts, 200 Annette St: Eight Townhouses Inside an 1888 Church

Park Lofts is not really a condo building in the way most people picture one. It is eight vertical homes cut into a small 1888 church on Annette Street, each with its own front door and parking tucked underneath, and it won a national heritage award for how it was done. The catch is simple: with eight suites, you may wait years for one to come up. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

Eight homes cut between the buttresses

The way this church was divided is what makes Park Lofts different. According to the National Trust for Canada, the design used the church’s buttresses as the dividing lines for six townhouse-style suites, and fitted two more suites into the east and west towers, which had to be extensively repaired and structurally reworked.

That gives you vertical homes rather than flats. The National Trust describes them as four-storey living spaces, while one loft guide describes each as spread over three storeys, and condos.ca lists the building as one storey. Whatever the count, expect stairs, and a lot of them. Ask for the floor plans of the specific suite and count the levels yourself.

Existing church windows were altered to create contemporary front doors, so most suites have their own entrance rather than a shared corridor. That is about as close to a freehold townhouse as a condo gets.

The two tower suites will feel different from the six between the buttresses. Towers tend to mean smaller floor plates stacked higher, with unusual window placements, while the middle suites are more regular. Neither is better by default, but they are not interchangeable, so compare like with like when you look at past sales.

A conversion that won a heritage award

The 1888 church is a modest building, valued for its Arts and Crafts-influenced design and its place in the old Village of West Toronto Junction, which joined the City of Toronto in 1909. The City of Toronto also includes it on its heritage inventory as Annette Street Baptist Church.

In 2013, the National Trust for Canada gave the project an Ecclesiastical Insurance Cornerstone Award for adaptive reuse. The citation notes that the conversion kept every visible part of the church as seen from the two corner streets, and that the exterior work included repairing, cleaning and repointing the brick and the damaged buttresses, and reinstating wood trim. The owners were Sam Grasso and Roberto Salmena of Terra Firma Homes.

For a buyer, an award is not a warranty, but it tells you the heritage work was done carefully the first time. That makes the next round of repairs more predictable.

Parking under the house, and very little else

Old churches rarely have room for parking. Here, the solution was to partially recess a parking space under each suite on the back side of the building. Condos.ca lists parking in the fee, along with common elements and building insurance, and also lists condominium taxes, which is an unusual item. Ask the seller to confirm how property tax is actually billed.

There are no shared amenities beyond being pet-friendly, according to condos.ca. No gym, no party room and no elevator. That keeps the common costs focused on the building envelope and the roof, but it also means the corporation’s budget is shared among only eight owners.

Property management is listed as Prohouse Management. In a corporation this small, the board is a few neighbours, so ask how often it meets and how decisions are made.

Living vertically has a practical side. Moving furniture up narrow stairs, carrying groceries from the parking space and planning for a time when stairs become harder are all real questions. For many buyers that is a fair trade for the space and the front door, but think about it before you fall for the stained glass.

Annette Street between High Park Avenue and Pacific

Park Lofts sits on a stretch of Annette Street lined with churches and century houses. The City’s heritage by-law for 152 Annette, down the street, names this building as one of a row of heritage church buildings, together with Victoria-Royce at 152 Annette and High Park-Alhambra United at 260 High Park Avenue.

The Junction’s main street on Dundas West and the shops of Bloor West Village are both within reach, and High Park is to the south. The transit, schools and parks data in the panel on this page give the specifics.

It is a settled residential setting. Little is likely to change on this block, which is part of the appeal.

Pricing a building with eight suites

Condos.ca puts the building average at around $895 per square foot. For large multi-level suites in a heritage church, that is reasonable next to Victoria Lofts on the same street at about $1,048, and in line with the better industrial lofts in the Junction and Wallace Emerson.

Eight suites means there may be no sale at all in some years. Any average is built on very few transactions, so I treat it as a rough guide and price each suite against detached and semi-detached houses nearby, which is what these homes really compete with.

The better comparison is often the house down the street. A semi-detached house on these blocks gives you a yard and full control, but also every repair bill. Park Lofts trades the yard for shared responsibility on the roof and walls, and the right price sits somewhere between a good condo and a house.

At the time of writing there was one suite listed for sale and none for rent. I won’t anchor on a single listing. If this is the building you want, set up an alert or book a call and I will watch for it.

Building specifications

Amenities at Park Lofts

There is no amenity package here, and that is the point. You are buying a townhouse-style home with its own door and parking, and your fees go to keeping a 19th-century building sound rather than to shared rooms.

Jatin’s honest take on Park Lofts

Park Lofts — frequently asked questions

Looking at the Junction, Corso Italia, Hillcrest Village and west-central Toronto more broadly? Start with my Toronto community guide — the neighbourhoods, what each pocket is like, and how they compare.