West One CityPlace, 11 Brunel Crt: The 49-Storey Tower With a Sky Garden

West One is the CityPlace tower you can pick out from the Gardiner: 49 storeys, with a notch cut into the middle where the 27th-floor sky garden sits. What sells it to buyers is less visible. The suites run larger than most of CityPlace, parking and heat are in the fee, and there are enough units for sale at any time that you can actually compare. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

The sky garden, and why the tower looks the way it does

West One was one of the first tall towers in Concord Adex’s CityPlace, part of Block 4 with N1 N2 and The Gallery. Wikipedia’s CityPlace table gives it 49 storeys and about 148 metres, started in 2005 and finished in October 2007, which made it tied for the tallest in the neighbourhood when it opened. SkyscraperPage credits the design to Page + Steele.

The feature you notice from the street is the inset at the 27th floor, where the building’s sky garden and lounge space sit. It breaks the tower into two parts and gives residents an amenity floor with a view, rather than burying everything at the podium level.

Not everyone liked the result. When the building was finishing, commenters on UrbanToronto’s forum called the towers dull and the low-rise base weak, and one argued that the mid-level amenity space cluttered the tower’s form. I think the sky garden has aged better than the critics expected. It is now the thing people remember about West One.

Bigger suites than CityPlace’s reputation

CityPlace has a reputation for small suites, and much of it is earned. West One is an exception at both ends: the smallest plans are around 468 sq ft, but the range runs past 2,500 sq ft, and two-plus-den plans in the 900s come up regularly.

That matters for resale. A building with a deep stock of mid-size suites gives you comparables, and it gives a buyer who outgrows a one-bedroom the option of moving up without changing buildings. It also means more owner-occupiers than a tower made up mostly of 500 sq ft units.

Suite numbers here run higher than the 49-storey count. That is normal in Toronto towers that skip certain floor numbers, but read the floor on the plan, not the suite number, when you compare views and heights.

What is in the fee, and what is shared

Parking, heat, water and air conditioning are all included in the fee, along with common elements and insurance. For a downtown tower, getting parking and heating inside the fee is a real advantage, and it is one reason the fee rate looks higher than at some newer buildings without being more expensive in practice.

The building’s own amenities include a concierge, guest suites, a party room, a meeting room, a sauna and visitor parking. Like its Block 4 neighbours, West One shares some facilities with adjacent buildings. Ask for the shared-facilities agreement in the status certificate and look at what TSCC-1949 contributes each year.

Listing data shows a pet restriction. That usually means a size or number limit rather than a ban, but get the actual wording from the declaration and rules before you commit if you have a dog.

Living at Brunel Court

Brunel Court is a small internal street off Fort York Boulevard and Spadina, which makes the entrance quieter than the tower’s height suggests. Canoe Landing Park, the large park at the centre of CityPlace, is the green space most residents use, and grocery and everyday retail sits at the base of the surrounding towers.

The trade-offs are the ones every CityPlace buyer weighs: the Gardiner on one side, the rail corridor on the other, and a neighbourhood that some people find too uniform. The upside of being one of the tallest towers is that higher suites see over much of that. Transit, schools and walkability are in the data panel on this page.

Exposure matters more here than in a shorter building. Lake-facing suites above the sky garden have views that nearby towers cannot block easily, while lower suites facing into Block 4 look at their neighbours. Two suites with the same plan can be worth noticeably different amounts depending on floor and direction, so price by view and not only by size.

CityPlace is also no longer new. The neighbourhood has finished most of its towers, and the park, schools and community facilities planned for it are largely in place. Buying in an older tower here means buying into a neighbourhood that has already settled, which removes some of the uncertainty that early buyers took on.

Price per square foot, fees and current asking prices

The building average is around $945 per square foot, above N1 N2 next door at about $898. Height, views and the larger suite stock explain most of that gap. Both trade below the newer Concord towers closer to Spadina and the lake.

Fees on current listings average about $0.96 per square foot. With parking, heat and air conditioning included, I would compare that against a newer building’s fee plus a separate parking charge plus a metered heating and cooling bill. On that basis the gap usually narrows or disappears.

Excluding parking and locker listings, current suites for sale ask between $430,000 and $879,999, from one-bedrooms under 500 sq ft to two-plus-dens in the 900s. Several one-bedrooms are on the market at once, so a buyer has real choice and an owner selling one should price carefully against the others.

Building specifications

Amenities at West One CityPlace

The sky garden is what makes West One’s amenity package different: an amenity floor halfway up the tower rather than in a basement. The rest of the list is standard for the era, and the shared facilities with neighbouring Block 4 buildings fill the gaps.

Jatin’s honest take on West One CityPlace

West One CityPlace — frequently asked questions

Looking at King West, Liberty Village and CityPlace more broadly? Start with my Toronto community guide — the neighbourhoods, what each pocket is like, and how they compare.