Upside Down Condos, 816 Lansdowne Ave: Davenport Village Value Check

Upside Down Condos is the building I show to buyers who want the Junction Triangle without paying new-tower prices. It is a 2014 Neudorfer building at Lansdowne just south of Dupont, one of the first phases of Davenport Village, and its fee covers heat, air conditioning and parking, which most of its newer neighbours do not. The trade-off is compact suites and a modest amenity list. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

A first phase of Davenport Village, not a one-off tower

To understand this building you have to understand the land around it. Neudorfer has been redeveloping a former industrial brownfield of roughly 27.5 acres bounded by Lansdowne, Dupont, Davenport and the rail corridor since 2000, and the master plan is known as Davenport Village. UrbanToronto describes Upside Down Condos as one of the early phases, finished in 2014, and the one that sits south of Dupont.

That matters because this is a planned neighbourhood that is still filling in. The Fuse towers at the northwest corner of Dupont and Lansdowne came after it, with a retained brick warehouse at the base that once belonged to General Electric, planned to hold a Metro grocery store and a Shoppers Drug Mart. When you buy here, you are buying into an area where the daily errands have been getting easier, not harder.

There is also a sister building, Upside Down Condos 2 at 812 Lansdowne. If you are shopping one, look at the other; they are listed separately and run as separate files, so compare fees and documents rather than assuming they match.

Compact suites, built for one or two people

Suites here run from roughly 500 to 995 square feet. In practice that means this is a one-bedroom and one-plus-den building, with a smaller number of two-bedroom plans at the top of that range. Every current listing I can see falls between about 500 and 699 square feet.

That size profile tells you who lives here: first-time buyers, couples and people renting while they work downtown or in the west end. It is not a family-size building, and I would not pretend otherwise. If you need a true second bedroom, you are hunting a small slice of the inventory and should be ready to move when one appears.

UrbanToronto notes that the later Fuse phases were designed with glass and light-toned precast similar to Upside Down, so expect the same clean, simple exterior language rather than anything ornamental. I could not confirm the architect of this phase from a primary source, so I have left it off the specification table.

The fee covers more than you think

Fees across current listings work out to about $0.93 per square foot. On its own that looks middling for a 2014 building. The point is what is inside it: air conditioning, heat, common elements, building insurance, parking and water.

Having heat and cooling in the fee is the detail most buyers miss when they compare this building to a newer tower down the street. In many newer Toronto buildings each suite has its own metered heating and cooling, and parking is sold and billed separately. Add those back to the cheaper fee and the gap narrows quickly.

Not every suite comes with a parking spot, and the fee on a suite without one will reflect that. Ask whether the unit you are looking at owns a space, whether a locker is included, and what hydro typically runs, because that is the main utility left on your own bill.

Daily life at Lansdowne and Dupont

This pocket sits where the Junction Triangle meets the Wallace Emerson and Geary Avenue blocks. The neighbourhood used to be defined by factories and rail lines; today it is defined by the conversions and new housing on those same lands, and by the cafes and small restaurants that followed people in.

The rail corridor to the west is both a plus and a fact of life. It is the reason the area has GO and UP Express service within reach, and it is also why you should stand on the balcony of any suite facing that way before you buy. The automatic panel on this page covers transit, schools and walkability in detail.

What Upside Down Condos costs per square foot

The building averages about $725 per square foot. For a 2014 building with heat, air conditioning and parking in the fee, that is a fair number in this part of the city, and it sits right beside 16 Foundry Condos across Dupont at about $715 per square foot, which gives you a useful cross-check.

At the time of writing there were three suites for sale, asking between $389,000 and $525,000, and three for rent. Asking is not selling, so look at the 12-month sold data in the panel above before you decide what a fair offer is.

The spread in that asking range is wider than the size spread, which usually means condition, view and parking are doing a lot of the work. Two suites of almost the same size can be worth very different amounts depending on whether one owns a space and which way it faces. If you are buying, I would rather see you pay a little more for the suite with parking and a quiet exposure than save on one that will be harder to resell. If you are selling, those are the two features to lead with.

Building specifications

Amenities at Upside Down Condos

This is a practical amenity package rather than a resort one: a party room, meeting room and recreation room, plus visitor parking and an underground garage. If a gym and pool matter to you, budget for an outside membership; if they do not, you are not paying fees to maintain them.

Jatin’s honest take on Upside Down Condos

Upside Down Condos — frequently asked questions

Looking at the Junction, Corso Italia, Hillcrest Village and west-central Toronto more broadly? Start with my Toronto community guide — the neighbourhoods, what each pocket is like, and how they compare.