I actually find this two-part blog feature somewhat ironic, since we’re talking about just how much development is going on in Liberty Village, and how many new units are going to be added to the housing stock, and yet I still visit Liberty Village once per week with buyers.

Imagine that.

Liberty Village is set to almost double in size over the next few years, and buyers are still buying with regularity.

Remember last week when I said I had planned to visit two units with an investor-client, and they had both sold?

The unit we were going to see on East Liberty Street was a 562 square foot, 1-bed, 1-bath, north-facing over Liberty Village Park, no owned parking space, listed at $499,000.

Offers were scheduled for July 29th (a whopping 16-day holdback is odd, and could be its own blog post, but that’s an aside…), but the unit sold via bully offer for $551,000.

And you know what?

I don’t see signs of this stopping.

We are apparently in the slow summer months right now, and the lowest-priced real estate in the city is still flying off the shelves.

Inside the downtown core, you’re looking at around $500,000 for a standard 1-bed, 1-bath unit, and investors usually look for the lowest-priced real estate that is easy to rent out.

That’s Liberty Village in a nutshell, and while Tuesday’s blog showed us that nearly 3,000 condos were registered in the neighbourhood in less than three years, this still didn’t satisfy the market demand.

Liberty Village was built very quickly, and as I mentioned yesterday with respect to the “second wave” of condos being built after 2012, it seemed like new buildings were popping up out of nowhere.  But believe it or not, there was a plan for all of this!

Here’s an undated map of Liberty Village that I pulled from a blog I wrote nine years ago.  Apologies for the low-resolution, but this is how I found it back then:

I believe this map pre-dated the townhouses in Liberty Village, but it’s how the City of Toronto viewed the future development of Liberty Village.

What I find the most interesting are the two green areas, which I would assume were meant to be parks or other greenspace.  The one to the right-hand-side is now a condo.

Block 1 calls for 475 units, and we know there are 466 condo townhouses in there.

Block 2A is home to 55 East Liberty Street, 59 East Liberty Street, and 51 East Liberty Street – that’s 276, 286, and 385 units respectively, or 947 in total.  It looks like this block has “room” for another 154, according to the plan.

Block 2B and 11A sort of blend together, but this is now home to 65, 75, and 85 East Liberty – which is 1,195 units.  That’s over the master plan by 315.

Block 3 calls for 325 units, but this is home to 50 Lynn Williams Street, 80 & 100 Western Battery Road, which is 931 units in total.  That’s over the master plan by 606, but in fairness, there is a “double question mark” on the plan.

Block 5 calls for 200 units, but this is home to 69 Lynn Williams Street, which is 201 units.  They’re over by one unit.  Oh dear!

Block 7 unfortunately has a number that I cannot read, but I would assume this is somewhere between 200 and 400 units.  This is currently home to 150 East Liberty Street, which is home to 466 units.

Block 6 calls for 400 units and that’s only home to 125 Western Battery Road, which is 438 units.

Block 8 calls for 160 units, but this is the future home of a condo that will be a lot larger than that!  More on this later…

In the video from last week, I showed you the intersection of Strachan Avenue and East Liberty Street, which now has an incredible six buildings under construction.  But look closer, and you’ll see that it’s actually seven buildings, as one is a dual-building on a podium that’s now being built, and there is an eighth planned for the corner currently housing the construction offices.

After my visit to Liberty Village last week, I remained somewhat confused by what is planned for this intersection.  I’ve now been back there not once, but twice, spoken to construction workers (one told me, “We just build the shit, we have no idea who’s buying or renting”), and scoured the depths of the Internet to paint an accurate picture.

The problem with accuracy, in this case, is that the lands located on the east side of Strachan Avenue have changed hands several times, been owned by multiple developers, and have been through several stages of planning.

What once was a condo, in one particular case, is now a rental building, of all things.

So here is what, to the best of my knowledge, is the future of East Liberty & Strachan streets, in Liberty Village:

Yes, I made that map myself.  In Paint.  I hear that newer versions of Windows don’t come with Paint, and for the life of me, I don’t know what I’ll do when my time to move past Windows 7 comes.

There are eight towers pictured above.  The project on the southeast corner of Strachan & Ordnance Street, is two towers, but the rendering doesn’t quite show it.  My original mock-up of this map had the building logos at first, but not all the projects have logos yet, so it just didn’t fly.  Not only that, there are so many logos for buildings that don’t exist!  Projects that were planned, before being changed!

You see, an entity called “Create TO” has been tasked with managing the City of Toronto’s real estate portfolio, which we know is vast!  Over the last few years, the lands to the east of Strachan Avenue, also known as “The Ordnance Triangle,” has changed hands, and/or involved multiple developers.

All of this is detailed on the website: https://createto.ca/project/ordnance-triangle/

From the site:

Phase 1 of the project refers to 30 Ordnance St., which was sold to Cityzen Development Group in 2012. The two-tower condominium project is currently under construction.  Phase 2 is the subsequent sale of the remaining parcels to Cityzen Development Group and Bentall Kennedy in 2015. The project will consist of three rental residential towers with a mix of uses.

In partnership with Diamond Corp., Build Toronto (now part of CreateTO) has provided Eva’s Phoenix, a past tenant of the City space, $5 million towards a new facility with a downtown location and $5 million towards the Fort York Bridge project.

Looking at public records, I can see how these lands have changed hands!

For example, 45 Strachan Avenue, which is the black-and-white building pictured above, on the northeast corner of Ordnance & Strachan:

Now I’m not even remotely aware of how the inner-workings of the City of Toronto play out, so I can’t comment on the above except to say either:

1) The entity who originally purchased the property from the City of Toronto has flipped it
2) The original entity still owns the property, but has moved it to other associated companies, on paper

I would sure hate to think it’s #1, otherwise the City of Toronto looks foolish, but I digress.

As for what is currently under construction, we have the following:

–

19 Western Battery Road:

This building is called “Zen King West” and is located on the former piece of green grass on the northwest corner of East Liberty Street and Strachan Avenue.

The building will be 32 storeys, 480 units, and is being built by CanAlfa Group.

Oh, and it’s sold out.

–

49 East Liberty Street:

God, I love these artist’s renderings that show no Gardiner Expressway or Lakeshore Boulevard, no CNE – just greenspace and boats in the harbour during a sunset…

This is “Liberty Central By The Lake II,” which makes perfect sense, considering “Liberty Central By The Lake I” literally looks like somebody chopped that complex pictured above, in half:

You’d have to see this in person for the photos above to do this justice – picture a “C-shape” that just sort of stops halfway.  That’s how 51 East Liberty Street looks, and so seeing the “second phase” of the complex on the way is not surprising.

The building will be 27-storeys, 302 units, and is also being built by CanAlfa.

This is also sold out.  In fact, all of these buildings are sold out, so I’ll stop the repetitiveness right now…

–

30 Ordnance Street & 50 Ordnance Street:

These two towers will make up “Garrison Point,” which are shown in my map above as the two buildings on the right, with the purple’ish sky.

Combined, the two buildings will have 516 units, and are each 35-storeys.

If you head down to Liberty Village now, these are the most prominent buildings as they are almost built to the top.

Garrison Point is being built by Diamondcorp, although with all these partnerships, I can’t keep track of who is building what, who is financing, who bought out who, etc.  Cityzen, Diamondcorp, Greybrook, Fernbrook, BentallGreenOak, and a partridge in a pear tree.

–

11 & 25 Ordnance Street:

Here’s where things get very, very interesting…

If you’re at the intersection right now, you might think this is actually one building, but it’s not.  It’s two, as per the rendering above, and the second tower is barely higher than the podium, and hard to see from the street.

But that’s not the interesting part.

What’s interesting about this project – is that these are purpose-built rentals!

Rentals?

In Toronto?

There must be some mistake, right?

Nope.

Called “Novus,” these two buildings will rise 25-storeys and 34-storeys respectively, and contain 531 total units.  The podium will also be home to a grocery store as well as other commercial/retail that is desperately needed by the Liberty Village community, and will especially be needed once several thousand new residents exist!

–

39 East Liberty Street:

Continuing the rental theme, this yet-to-be-named building by Centrecourt Developments will rise 25-storeys and provide 440 units to a starved rental pool.

As I understand it, CanAlfa had previously owned this site, as well as the site to the north at 19 Western Battery Road (marketed as Zen King West), but sold the two sites to Centrecourt Developments.

See what I mean about the who’s-who of development?  It’s a mass for us laymen.

–

45 Strachan Avenue:

Last but not least, we have the only building on a site that has not at least begun excavation.

On the northeast corner of Strachan & Ordnance is a site that used to be home to a barn-like structure, but is now a paved lot.  This is currently home to construction offices and parking, presumably for the other towers under construction (Garrison Point & Novus).

This is the fourth rental tower of the eight condos planned and/or under construction, and that, to me, is just mind-blowing.  HALF of the new buildings will be rentals.  Wow.

Rising 39-storeys, this un-named building will have 433 units.

–

Now all of this is going on at the corner of Strachan & East Liberty, but moving back into Liberty Village proper, there is yet another development going on:

171 East Liberty Street:

This project has quite the complicated history.

Lifetime Developments first proposed a 32-storey tower way back in 2012, but as is often the case, Developer vs. City held up the process.

The project is now sitting at 28-storeys and because it’s adjacent to the office, commercial, and retail strip in Liberty Market, there will be a 7-storey podium for office space.

The rest of the tower will contain 281 residential condominiums.

So let’s review:

Condominium:
Zen King West – 480 units
Liberty Central II – 302 Units
Garrison Point – 516 Units
Liberty Market Lofts – 281 Units

Rental:
39 East Liberty St – 440 Units
45 Strachan Ave – 453 Units
11/25 Ordnance St – 531 Units

That’s a whopping total of 3,003 new units being added to the existing 5,157 in Liberty Village.

This means Liberty Village, one of the more dense and some might say “congested” neighbourhoods in the downtown core is increase by about 60%, and that’s just what we know of!  Add a couple more condos, and Liberty Village is going to double in size.

The area is “only” adding 1,579 new condo units, but based on what’s happening in the real estate market in this area (I submitted a $550,000 bully offer tonight on a $499,900 listing, no conditions, bank draft in hand, and the offer was rejected), I think these units will be gobbled up and, despite the increased supply, prices will continue to rise.

But the area will now add over 3,000 new units, which means likely 4,000+ more people.

There will be a new park, of course!

But people can’t buy groceries in that park.  They can’t hit the gym in that park, or get their car serviced in that park, or see a doctor in that park.

Where’s the infrastructure going to come from?

Ah well, it’s not like Toronto has ever been ahead of the curve on that one.  Our subway system is amazing……………..for 1950.

So there you have it, folks!  The future of Liberty Village.

But do you think, at any point, people living in the condo at 30 Ordnance Street, or the rental at 45 Strachan Avenue will say, “I live in the Ordnance Triangle?”  Or better yet, “I live in Garrison Point?”

Or will this always be Liberty Village?