The Address at High Park, 1638 Bloor St W: Boutique Bloor and Indian Rd

The Address at High Park is a building I like for buyers who want a newer, small condo on Bloor without paying park-frontage prices. It sits at Bloor and Indian Road, east of Keele, and it is about a decade old: new enough to have nine-foot ceilings and modern systems, old enough to have a track record you can read. It is not across from the park, despite the name. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

A Quadrangle mid-rise built to fit Bloor Street

The building replaced a small retail plaza on the corner of Bloor and Indian Road, and it put shops back at grade, about 10,000 square feet of retail according to the Globe and Mail’s coverage of the launch. Quadrangle Architects designed a brick podium with precast stone trim for the lower six or seven floors and a glass-and-steel top that steps back from the street. The idea was to match the scale of the old Bloor West storefronts rather than tower over them.

The site is a hillside lot that slopes down to the west and north, which UrbanToronto noted made excavation and the design more complicated. It is one reason the building reads as smaller from Bloor than its 12 storeys suggest, and why views improve quickly once you are above the podium.

Chestnut Hill also leaned on green details at launch: rainwater collection, low-emissivity glazing, and low-VOC paints, sealants and adhesives chosen for indoor air quality. Andrea Kantelberg, a designer known for sustainable interiors, did the lobby and amenity spaces. None of that changes your monthly costs much, but it tells you the developer was building for owner-occupiers rather than for a quick investor sell-out.

If the name sounds familiar, Quadrangle also designed The High Park Condos at 1990 Bloor, further west. Both buildings belong to the same Bloor West generation of brick-podium mid-rises.

Nine-foot ceilings, terraces on the setbacks, and live/work suites

According to the developer’s launch materials, standard ceilings are nine feet, and suites on the top two floors get an extra foot. Floor-to-ceiling windows run along the exterior walls. Layouts are one-bedroom to two-bedroom-plus-den, open-concept, from about 549 to 1,280 square feet in strata.ca’s data; the original plans ran from about 600 to 1,261.

The setbacks matter. Where the building steps in, at the seventh and eleventh floors, some suites gained terraces of up to roughly 500 square feet. Those are the units to watch for if outdoor space is your priority, and they rarely come up.

Nineteen suites were planned as live/work units, an unusual detail for a building this size. If you run a small practice from home, ask the listing agent whether a suite has live/work status and what the declaration permits. Strata.ca’s data shows the mix is weighted to one-bedroom-plus-den suites, about half the building, with two-bedrooms and two-bedroom-plus-dens making up most of the rest.

Fees, utilities and what is in the garage

Condos.ca lists the fee as covering common elements, heat, air conditioning, water, building insurance and parking. Hydro was separately metered from the start, so budget for your own electricity bill. On current listings, fees run from about $730 to $1,040 a month, and condos.ca calculates the active average at about $1.17 per square foot. Strata.ca puts the building average lower, at about $0.92. Either way, this is on the high side for a 2013 building, so ask the corporation why.

One sensible design detail from the launch: lockers were placed off the residential corridors and beside parking spaces rather than all together in a cage in the basement. Check which kind of locker, if any, comes with your suite, and whether the parking space is owned or exclusive-use.

A building of about 108 suites spreads a concierge, an elevator and a garage across relatively few owners. That is one reason boutique buildings often carry higher fees per square foot than large towers.

Between Keele and Dundas West

Indian Road is the eastern end of the High Park stretch of Bloor. Walk west and you reach Keele and the park’s northeastern corner; walk east and you reach Bloor and Dundas West. Roncesvalles is to the south, and Bloor West Village is a little further west. The Globe’s launch coverage noted that the subway is reachable from behind the building; the panel shows the exact transit data.

This stretch of Bloor is mostly independent shops, cafés and small restaurants, with the bigger grocery and errand runs a short trip away. It is quieter than the blocks right at Bloor and Dundas, but it is still a busy main street with buses and steady traffic. If quiet matters, look at suites on the back of the building, away from Bloor, and visit during rush hour before you decide.

Price per square foot at The Address

Condos.ca puts the building average at about $913 per square foot, and strata.ca’s past-12-month sales averaged closer to $979, with suites selling quickly and often above asking. For a 2013 building on the subway, that is in line with the newer mid-rises along this part of Bloor and below what park-frontage buildings ask.

For context, the suites launched in 2010 from about $352,000 to just over $550,000. Current asking prices for a one-bedroom-plus-den and a two-bedroom range from roughly $427,000 to $810,000. Only a couple of suites are usually for sale, so check the sold report rather than relying on one listing.

Strata.ca’s data also shows suites selling in around ten days on average, with multiple offers not unusual. In practice, that means you should have your financing approved and a lawyer ready to review the status certificate quickly before a suite you like comes on the market.

Building specifications

Amenities at The Address at High Park

The amenity package is compact but useful: a gym, a party room, a screening room, a guest suite and an east-facing terrace on the amenity level. The self-serve dog spa planned at launch is a nice touch for pet owners, but check the current rules before you assume pets are unrestricted.

Jatin’s honest take on The Address at High Park

The Address at High Park — frequently asked questions

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