The Nest Condos, 835 St Clair Ave W: A RAW Design Mid-Rise in Hillcrest

The Nest is the building that showed St Clair West could take a modern mid-rise without losing its main-street feel. It is a nine-storey 2017 Rockport building by RAW Design, stepped and boxy, with outdoor space on nearly every suite and geothermal heating under it. It is small, well located and priced like it. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

A mid-rise designed for a main street

UrbanToronto described The Nest as the first major new building on this stretch of St Clair since the streetcar right-of-way was rebuilt in 2010. The site had held a KFC and its parking lot, along with neighbouring properties, so the building replaced a gap in the street wall rather than anything people missed.

The area itself has a longer story. This part of Hillcrest was once the Bracondale Hill estate, subdivided in 1909, and the side streets are still lined with houses from that era. The building’s job was to add density on the avenue without overshadowing them, which is why it steps back on the south side above the fifth floor.

Roughly 10,000 square feet of retail at grade keeps the sidewalk active. For residents, that means the street level stays a shopping street, not a blank condo podium.

Day to day, Hillcrest Village is a working main street: cafes, restaurants, small grocers and services within a few blocks, the streetcar on the avenue, and the Wychwood Barns, with its weekend farmers’ market, in the neighbourhood south of the avenue. It is the kind of location where owners stop driving for most errands, which is worth more than any amenity room.

RAW Design’s stacked boxes

RAW Design gave the building a stacked, asymmetrical form. Projecting bays in grey and white push in and out of the facade, with balconies and terraces set between them, and the materials are brick and fibreC, a glass-fibre reinforced concrete panel engineered in Germany.

The result is a building with a lot of corners and a lot of outdoor space. Coverage at launch said nearly every suite would have a balcony or terrace, rising to around 570 square feet at the penthouse level. On St Clair, where most older apartments have none, that is a real selling point.

Interiors and common areas were by II by IV Design, and the landscape by Janet Rosenberg & Studio. RAW and Janet Rosenberg also worked together on Reflections at Don Mills, if you want a second building by the same team to compare.

Layouts: lots of plan types in a small building

Suites run from about 444 to 1,288 square feet, according to condos.ca. Pre-construction coverage counted 48 different layouts for about 120 suites, which is a lot of variety for a building this size.

That variety is good and bad. It means you can find unusual plans, such as terrace suites on the setback floors and corner units with two exposures. It also means comparables are harder, because two suites with similar square footage can live very differently. On the setback floors, a terrace can add a lot of usable space that the square footage figure does not show, and that is where pricing disagreements usually start.

Every suite was marketed with floor-to-ceiling windows. Ask about ceiling height on the specific floor, because I could not confirm it from published sources, and check whether the suite comes with parking and a locker, since parking is not listed in the fee.

Geothermal heating, and the fee question

The Nest was built with a geothermal heat pump system, along with efficient windows and lighting, low-flow fixtures and individual suite utility metering, and the project was described as exceeding the City’s Tier 1 Green Standard.

Condos.ca lists heat and air conditioning as included in the fee, while the original coverage mentioned individual suite metering. Those two can both be true, depending on what is metered, but they are worth reconciling. Ask the manager exactly which utilities you pay directly and which are in the fee.

Geothermal systems are cheap to run and long-lived in the ground loop, but the heat pumps inside the building are mechanical equipment with their own replacement cycle. Look for them in the reserve fund study. Ask too who services the system and whether the corporation has a maintenance contract in place, since geothermal expertise is more specialised than a conventional boiler.

Pricing: a premium for St Clair West

Condos.ca puts the building’s average at about $942 per square foot. That is a premium figure for this stretch of St Clair and reflects a newer boutique building, generous outdoor space and the Hillcrest location between Bathurst and Dufferin.

Fees include heat, air conditioning, building insurance and water as well as common elements. Hydro and parking are not listed as included, so add them back when you compare with older buildings on St Clair that bundle more.

There were no active listings at the time of writing. In a building with 48 layouts, the right comparable is the same plan or a close match, not the building average. You can request a sold report for the building.

Building specifications

Amenities at The Nest Condos

The best amenity is the roof: an indoor lounge that opens onto an outdoor living room with a built-in kitchen and barbecue. On the ground floor, a flex space with a kitchen, library and fireplace opens to a patio, which is more useful day to day than a standard party room.

Jatin’s honest take on The Nest Condos

The Nest Condos — frequently asked questions

Looking at York Mills, Don Mills, Lawrence Park, Bathurst Manor and midtown-north Toronto more broadly? Start with my Toronto community guide — the neighbourhoods, what each pocket is like, and how they compare.