The Hazelton, 118 Yorkville Ave: Private Residences Above a Five-Star Hotel

The Hazelton is one of the few places in Toronto where you can own a home above a five-star hotel. There are only around 16 to 18 residences, each one the size of a house, set on the upper floors of the limestone building on Yorkville Avenue. Buying here is less about price per square foot and more about whether the hotel-residence model suits how you want to live. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

A hotel below, houses in the sky above

The building works in two layers. The four-storey podium is The Hazelton Hotel, a 77-room boutique hotel that opened in 2007 and has since earned a Forbes Five Star rating and membership in The Leading Hotels of the World. Above it are five floors of private condominium residences.

Sources disagree on how many residences there are. The architect’s project page says 18; the building profile and a Globe and Mail review from the hotel’s opening say 16. Either way, this is one of the smallest condominium corporations in Yorkville, and you will know every neighbour by name.

IBI Group designed the building, with a layered brick and stone podium and a limestone exterior, and the residences step back in terraces as the building rises. Yabu Pushelberg designed the hotel interiors, taking a warmer, more traditional direction than the firm is usually known for.

Suite sizes that compete with houses

Recorded residence sizes start at about 2,813 square feet and run to roughly 8,095 square feet. These are not condos in the usual sense. Most are full-floor or near-full-floor homes with room counts and storage you would expect in a Rosedale house.

The architect describes 10-foot ceilings, floor-to-ceiling windows and exterior French doors opening onto private terraces. The terraces are the reason the building steps back, and in Yorkville, where outdoor space at this scale is rare, they are a large part of the value.

Because the suites are so large and so few, each one has usually been customized. Two residences of similar size can have very different layouts, finishes and condition, so you are really buying a specific home, not a model.

That also affects how long a sale takes. With so few comparable residences, pricing is a judgment call, and a well-prepared buyer who has looked at the building’s history and the specific residence can negotiate from a position of knowledge rather than guesswork.

What living above a hotel actually means

The attraction is obvious: the hotel’s restaurant, ONE, by chef Mark McEwan, its spa and its fitness facilities are downstairs, along with a private screening room. The residence profile lists a concierge, security, a sauna, a car wash and a parking garage.

What I would not assume is that every hotel service is included in your fees or available on the same terms as hotel guests. In a hotel-residence building, the relationship between the condominium and the hotel is set out in shared facilities and cost-sharing agreements. Read those carefully: they decide what you can use, what you pay for and who controls shared parts of the building.

The trade-off is that you share an address with a busy hotel. Arrivals, events and restaurant traffic are part of daily life at the front door. For some owners that is the appeal; for others it is the reason to choose a quieter building on Hazelton Avenue. Visit at different times, including a Friday evening, before you decide which camp you are in.

Yorkville Avenue at Hazelton

The Hazelton sits on Yorkville Avenue beside the former Hazelton Lanes shopping centre, now Yorkville Village, and steps from the galleries on Hazelton Avenue, Bloor Street’s luxury retail and the Royal Ontario Museum. This is the centre of Yorkville, and it is busiest during the film festival and on summer weekends. Living at the centre of all that is the point of buying here, and also the thing to be honest with yourself about.

The data panel on this page covers transit, Walk Score and nearby food and parks.

Pricing at the top of the market

The building averages about $1,413 per square foot, which puts it among the highest-priced condominiums in Toronto. Because there are so few residences and so few sales, that average can move a lot with a single transaction, so treat it as a rough guide. Comparable sales of similar size and floor in this building and its closest Yorkville peers tell you far more.

Only one residence was listed for sale at the time of writing, so I will not quote its asking price or fee. As a general point, fees on homes of 3,000 to 8,000 square feet with hotel-level staffing are substantial, and here they include air conditioning, common elements, building insurance, parking and water, but not heat. Ask for the fee history over the last five years and the current budget, not just this year’s number.

If you are weighing The Hazelton against a large suite in a newer Yorkville tower, compare the full monthly carrying cost, including fees, heat, property tax and any hotel service charges, rather than price per square foot alone. My building sold report shows what has closed.

Building specifications

Amenities at The Hazelton

The residence package is short on paper because the hotel does the heavy lifting: a five-star restaurant, spa and staff are downstairs. What you can use, and on what terms, is set by the agreements between the condominium and the hotel, so read them before you count on it.

Jatin’s honest take on The Hazelton

The Hazelton — frequently asked questions

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