On the Map
14-storey condo tower to replace low-rise commercial buildings
Though the intersection where Dupont Stations its has never looked like much, it’s the nexus of three of the city’s most exclusive neighbourhoods. The leafy streets radiating from it are lined by gable- topped manses in the Annex, the Victorian townhomes of Yorkville and the sprawling estates of Casa Loma that look like they were pulled from an Edith Wharton novel. Right beside the metro stop, however, at Dupont and Spadina, there’s little more than a Shopper’s Drug Mart and a handful of restaurants and car washes.
Factories used to occupy the strip — Wing’s fortune cookies, Mono Lino Typesetting — but those have been torn down for redevelopment, signalling the transformation of this crossways into a residential enclave. One such project, a 14- storey condo tower called Anx by Freed Developments, is replacing a series of lowrise commercial buildings. “The north side of Dupont is really evolving,” says Peter Freed, Freed Developments’ founder. “In a few years, it won’t be recognizable.”
Change is already well underway — Anx is expected to be complete by fall 2023, with construction starting sometime in 2021 — but Freed’s project has been a long time in the making.
The triangular lot sits between a sharp bend on Dupont and an active train line. Freed acquired the site six or seven years ago, with a plan to put up two residential towers 15 and 29 storeys high. The city had different ideas, deeming the proposal too tall for the area; it also expressed concern over losing too much commercial space so close to transit; Anx is steps from the subway. Similar reasons were given when a 2011 proposal from a previous owner was rejected, an owner who gave up on the site and sold to Freed.
Through successive redesigns, Freed reduced the height of the two towers to 9 and 19 storeys (which the city also rejected), then proposed a single, elegant 13-storey midrise sitting on a three-storey podium of retail stores and offices, a version the city approved.
The slimmed-down building still grabs the eye; concrete lines shoot up from the ground through the glass facade, unfurling into oblong balconies across the face of the building like floating lilies. The rectangular building cuts across its triangular lot, leaving an open patch of public space where Dupont jogs away. Its exact purpose is still to be determined — it might become a terrace for a café, or a plaza with public art. Either way “it will be a special place in the neighbourhood,” says Freed, who notes that few new buildings create an accessible plaza on the street.
ANX isn’t a soaring tower, but it’s tall compared to the two- and three-storey homes that fill the surrounding neighbourhoods. Because nothing blocks its views, ANX’S rooftop pool and barbecue area, as well as its indoor gym, have clear vistas south to Toronto’s skyline and north to Casa Loma.
The 104 suites themselves, which range in size from 600 to 2,500 square feet, also have sweeping views — “we tried to make the apartments long and shallow along the windows,” says Sarah Chris, marketing manager at Freed Development. “We really wanted to avoid that long, dark bowling-alley affect that often happens in condos, and instead provide a lot of natural light, a lot of views.”
To allow the apartments maximum spread, only five per cent of the units are one bedrooms — starting at about 535 square feet — and none are micro- bachelors. Most have either two or three bedrooms, with a few four bedrooms, the largest of which are more than 2,500 square feet and are priced in the $3-million ballpark. The sizes, and asking prices, suit well-heeled professionals, the kind of people who already live in Yorkville, the Annex and Casa Loma. While the shape of the neighbourhood is changing, exclusivity remains intact, and is maybe becoming even more apparent.
Units starting at $ 699,900. For more information, visit freeddevelopments.com.