Quantum North Tower, 2191 Yonge St: Midtown’s Tall LEED Gold Minto Tower

Quantum North Tower is the one people point at when they say Yonge and Eglinton skyline. For years it was the tallest thing in midtown, it was built to LEED Gold when almost nobody bothered, and its fees still come in lower per square foot than most of its neighbours. The catch is that it is now an 18-year-old glass tower with 556 suites, and that changes what you need to check. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

The tower that changed what midtown was allowed to build

This building has more history than most people realise. Minto bought the site in 2000 and applied for towers far taller and denser than the rules allowed.

The settlement trimmed several storeys off the plan and had Minto pay about $1.2 million toward social housing and $200,000 toward transit connections. The fight was a central issue in the 2003 municipal election in the ward. Everything tall that has gone up around Yonge and Eglinton since then lives in the shadow, literally and politically, of these two towers.

The result is two glass towers on one site: Quantum South at about 37 storeys and this north tower at about 52. The heights you will see quoted vary a little: Wikipedia and Urban Toronto say 52 storeys, condos.ca lists 53 floors, and a property management directory says 54. The difference is usually how mechanical and amenity levels are counted, and it does not matter to your suite.

LEED Gold, and why the fee is lower than you expect

Minto took the Quantum project to LEED Gold certification, and Wikipedia notes it was described in 2009 as the largest LEED-certified multi-residential condominium in North America. Quantum 2 was also named Condo of the Year by CCI Toronto, the condo industry association, in 2011.

Green features are nice, but the practical effect is in the fee. On the eight suites listed for sale when I checked, fees ran from about $510 to $968 a month, roughly $0.78 per square foot. That is low for midtown, and it covers heat and air conditioning as well as common elements and insurance.

Read the fine print, though. Water and parking are not shown in the fee-inclusion list on condos.ca, and a management directory notes that electricity is sub-metered through Priority. So you will pay your own hydro bill, and if a suite comes with parking you should confirm whether it carries a separate fee. Once you add those back, the gap with a building like Panache, where hydro and parking are in the fee, gets smaller.

One more point on the LEED rating: it describes how the building was designed and built in 2008, not how it performs today. Ask the property manager about current energy and water use, and whether the board has kept up the systems that earned the rating, because that is what shows up in your fee over the next decade.

Suite mix: lots of one-bedrooms, and a few very large homes

With 556 suites, this is a big building, and most of what trades here is one-bedroom and one-bedroom-plus-den. The current listings were almost all in the 600 to 899 sq ft range. That makes resale comparables easy to find, which is good for a buyer and a bit of a ceiling for a seller.

At the other end, suites run up to about 4,171 sq ft, which tells you the upper floors include some genuinely large penthouse-scale homes. If you are looking at one of those, comparables inside the building will be thin, and you should look at other midtown penthouses too.

In a tower this tall, floor and direction matter more than finishes. The higher south-facing suites look straight down Yonge toward downtown; lower suites look into neighbouring towers. When you compare two similar one-bedrooms, ask what floor each is on and what is planned on the lots it faces.

Daily life on Yonge just south of Eglinton

The address puts you on the Yonge Street strip between Eglinton and Davisville, with retail at the base of the complex and the Yonge-Eglinton shopping area a short walk north. Grocery, the subway and parks are listed in the data panel on this page.

This corner has also been one of the busiest construction zones in the city for over a decade, between the Eglinton Crosstown work and the wave of new towers on every side street. Expect noise and lane closures to keep coming as more projects go up. If quiet matters, favour higher floors and suites that do not face an active site.

There is an upside to all that growth. The Yonge-Eglinton area now has a far deeper mix of restaurants, services and shops than it did when Quantum was finished, and that depth is part of what keeps demand for rentals and resales steady here.

Pricing: midtown address, mid-market price per foot

Quantum North Tower averages about $827 per square foot on condos.ca. That puts it right with its 2008 midtown peers: The 88 on Broadway shows about $826, 900 Mount Pleasant about $828 and Panache about $818. You are not paying a premium for the height or the LEED badge, and you are not getting a discount for the age either.

When I checked, nine suites were for sale. One-bedrooms in the 600 to 699 sq ft range were asking about $545,000 to $565,000, one-plus-dens in the 700 to 899 sq ft range about $579,000 to $669,900, and a single larger two-plus-den was listed above $1 million. Five more suites were for rent.

With that much choice, a buyer has leverage. Do not anchor on asking prices; use the sold medians in the data panel and compare against the same stack on a different floor. In a building this size, there is almost always another nearly identical suite coming to market.

Building specifications

Amenities at Quantum North Tower

The amenity floor is the full midtown package: an indoor lap pool, a gym and yoga room, a theatre, and a lounge with a kitchen, bar and private dining room for hosting. In a 556-suite tower, ask how bookings work for the party room and guest suites, because demand is high.

Jatin’s honest take on Quantum North Tower

Quantum North Tower — frequently asked questions

Looking at Yonge & Eglinton, Davisville and North Toronto more broadly? Start with my Toronto community guide — the neighbourhoods, what each pocket is like, and how they compare.