Playground at Garrison Point, 50 Ordnance St: Pool, Park and Rail Lines

Playground at Garrison Point is the building I show buyers who want a new tower, an outdoor pool and a park at the front door, and who can live with trains on both sides. It sits in the Ordnance Triangle, a wedge of former railway land east of Strachan Avenue that has turned into one of the more complete new neighbourhoods on the west side of downtown. The name fits better than most marketing names do. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

A tower built on a triangle of railway land

Garrison Point is the developers’ name for the Ordnance Triangle, a 7.75-acre site that the city’s planning department named for its shape. Strachan Avenue forms the west side, the Kitchener rail corridor runs along the north and the Lakeshore West corridor along the south. For decades it was land nobody wanted to live on. The site was sold by Build Toronto to a group led by Cityzen Development Group, Fernbrook Homes and Greybrook Realty Partners, with Diamond Corp named as a partner in earlier coverage.

Playground is the taller of the first two condo towers, at 35 storeys, and both were designed by Hariri Pontarini Architects. The cladding is dark-tinted window wall with opaque spandrel panels, dark aluminum mullions and vertical metal fins. It reads as a darker, more sculptural tower than the green-glass slabs of CityPlace to the east. The wider plan also includes Novus, a rental tower by the same architect for Bentall Kennedy, so Playground is one piece of a cluster, not a standalone building.

That matters for resale. You are buying into a neighbourhood that was planned as a whole, with a park, a bridge and retail, rather than a single tower dropped onto an arterial road.

The park and the bridge are the real amenities

The feature that sets Playground apart is outside the building. A public park of roughly four acres sits at its base; one source gives 3.9 acres, and the park was designed by Claude Cormier + Associates. Ground-floor townhouse suites front directly onto it. For a buyer with a dog or a toddler, stepping out of the lobby onto grass is worth more than another lounge on the fifth floor.

The other piece is Garrison Crossing, the pedestrian and cycling bridge over the rail corridor. It is built as two bridges whose spans arch in opposite directions, and it links the triangle with Fort York and the Stanley Park side of King West. Before the bridges, the Ordnance Triangle was an island; with them, a walk to the King West restaurant strip or to Fort York is a straight line instead of a long detour around the tracks.

The honest flip side is the rail lines themselves. You have active corridors on two sides. Some buyers never notice the trains; others notice nothing else. Visit at rush hour, stand on the balcony of the suite you are considering, and listen before you decide.

Layouts: mostly compact, a few larger plans

Suites here run from about 357 to 1,021 sq ft. At launch the developers marketed studios, one-bedrooms and two-bedrooms with and without dens, from about 350 to just over 1,000 sq ft. Early UrbanToronto coverage of the first phase talked about larger two-bedroom-plus-den plans over 1,300 sq ft and townhouses at the base of both towers, so be careful when a listing quotes a size: ask whether it is the Playground tower or the second tower in the phase.

In practice, the resale stock is dominated by one-bedroom and one-bedroom-plus-den suites between 500 and 700 sq ft. When I checked, seven of the eight priced listings for sale were one-bedrooms or one-plus-dens between 500 and 700 sq ft, and only one was a two-bedroom. If you need a true two-bedroom, you will be waiting for the right suite rather than choosing between several.

Orientation matters more here than in most towers. South-facing suites look over the rail corridor toward the lake, and north and east suites face the downtown skyline. Low floors on the rail sides deserve a careful look at both noise and the view.

Daily life in the Ordnance Triangle

The daily reality here is that you live inside a new neighbourhood that is still filling in. The Garrison Point plan calls for five towers in total, so expect construction on the remaining parcels for some years yet. That brings cranes and noise, and over time it brings more retail and more neighbours to support it.

Across Strachan you have Liberty Village, with its grocery stores, restaurants and towers such as ZEN King West, and over the bridge you have King West and Fort York. The automatic panel on this page covers transit, schools and walkability, so I will not repeat it here. What I will say is that the triangle is quieter at street level than Liberty Village, because there is no through traffic, and that is part of the appeal.

What Playground costs to own

Condos.ca puts the building average at about $880 per square foot. That sits roughly in line with other newer towers on the west side of downtown, which tells you the market is not giving you a discount for the rail lines, and is not charging much of a premium for the pool and the park either.

When I checked, ten suites were for sale and twelve for lease. The eight priced listings I reviewed were asking between $499,000 and $799,999. One-bedrooms were asking roughly $499,000 to $620,000, and one-bedroom-plus-den suites roughly $559,000 to $690,000.

Monthly fees on those listings ranged from about $499 to $741, which works out to roughly $0.93 per square foot. Condos.ca lists only common elements, building insurance and water as included, which suggests heat and hydro are on your own meter. Parking is not listed as an inclusion either, so confirm whether a suite comes with a space and locker and what each costs. For a value check on a specific suite, I can pull the recent comparables through my building sold report.

Building specifications

Amenities at Playground Condos at Garrison Point

Launch materials listed a fitness centre with spa, an outdoor pool, a party room, a residents’ lounge, a children’s lounge, a theatre room and a terrace with barbecues and a fire feature. The outdoor pool is seasonal, so treat it as a summer bonus; the park at the base is what you will use every day.

Jatin’s honest take on Playground Condos at Garrison Point

Playground Condos at Garrison Point — 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.