The Merchandise Lofts, 155 Dalhousie St: Simpsons’ Old Warehouse

The Merchandise Lofts is the building I point to when someone says hard lofts in Toronto are all tiny and overpriced. This is the old Simpson’s mail-order warehouse on Dalhousie Street, a heritage building converted in the late 1990s into about 480 suites with 12-foot ceilings and a rooftop pool. It is big, solid and well located, and the fees are the part you need to understand before you buy. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

Simpson’s warehouse, then Sears, then lofts

The Merchandise Building began in 1910 as a manufacturing and delivery building for the Robert Simpson Company, the department store that once rivalled Eaton’s. It grew in stages, with major additions around 1914 to 1917 and again from 1930, and became Simpson’s mail-order distribution centre. At one point more than 12,000 people worked here. Sears Canada later took it over and owned it until the early 1990s, when it was sold for redevelopment.

The architect most associated with it is Max Dunning, working with Burke, Horwood and White, the firm behind much of Simpson’s building in Toronto. The city designated the building under the Ontario Heritage Act in May 1997, and the conversion earned a commendation from Heritage Toronto.

What you inherit from that history is structure. Warehouses built to carry catalogue stock have thick concrete floors and wide column bays, which is why these suites feel solid and quiet in a way a new tower rarely does.

Tall ceilings, barn doors and a lot of layout choice

Cresford’s conversion kept the industrial bones and dressed them lightly: about 12-foot ceilings, exposed concrete columns and 8-foot sliding barn doors in many suites. The suites were planned around nine main layouts, with more than sixty variations, so two units of the same size can feel very different.

The size range is wide, from about 487 sq ft to over 2,600 sq ft. The smaller suites suit a student’s parents or a first-time buyer; the larger ones are true lofts with room to work from home. Because of the deep warehouse floor plates, the inner part of some suites is a long way from the windows, so check how far the bedroom sits from natural light.

Ask exactly which wall your windows are on. In a building this large, the outlook ranges from open city views on the upper floors to the walls of neighbouring buildings and the campus around you, and the same floor plan can sell for very different money depending on what it looks at. Light, not size, is often what separates the best suites here from the rest.

A rooftop pool, and what it costs to run

The roof is the building’s party trick: a pool, a large patio, a green roof and even a dog-walking area. Add an indoor half-basketball court, a gym, a sauna, a media room, guest suites and a concierge, and you have more amenity space than most towers twice as tall.

That package explains a lot of the fee. Across the active listings when I checked, fees worked out to about $1.33 per square foot, and ranged from roughly $840 a month for a one-bedroom to more than $2,400. That is high. In fairness, condos.ca lists heat and air conditioning in the fee along with common elements, building insurance and water, so you are not paying a separate heating bill.

The building is also more than a century old in parts, with a 1990s conversion on top. Roofs, pools, elevators and window systems all need money, and in a heritage building the repairs have to respect the designation. Read the reserve fund study, not just the monthly fee.

Living at Dalhousie and Dundas

This is the busy east side of the downtown core. The Toronto Metropolitan University campus surrounds you, Yonge-Dundas Square and the Eaton Centre are a short walk west, and there is a supermarket on the ground floor of the building, which is a real daily convenience.

The flip side is that the streets around Dundas and Church are busy at all hours, with students during the term and crowds on weekends. If you want calm, look for a suite on an upper floor facing away from the main roads. Next door at 135 Dalhousie, the Merchandise Lofts Phase V is a separate building with its own corporation, so do not assume the two share fees or rules.

What the Merchandise Lofts costs

Condos.ca puts the building average at about $685 per square foot. That is low for a downtown loft, and two things drive it: the large suites, which always trade for less per square foot, and the high fees, which buyers price in.

When I checked, eight suites were for sale and three for lease. Asking prices ran from $438,000 to $2,148,000. The one-bedroom listings were asking about $438,000 to $449,000, and the two-bedroom and two-plus-den listings ran from $750,000 to over $2.1 million, which shows how much size and floor change the price here.

The fee is the honest catch. At about $1.33 per square foot, a large suite carries a monthly cost that changes your mortgage maths, so work out total monthly cost before you compare this with a newer tower. If you want a value check on a specific suite, I can pull the comparables through my building sold report.

Building specifications

Amenities at The Merchandise Lofts

The rooftop pool and deck are the real draw, and the half basketball court is something almost no condo in the city has. You use these, or you pay for them anyway, so be honest with yourself about how often you will.

Jatin’s honest take on The Merchandise Lofts

The Merchandise Lofts — frequently asked questions

Looking at St. Lawrence, the Financial District and Downtown Yonge more broadly? Start with my Toronto community guide — the neighbourhoods, what each pocket is like, and how they compare.