Canderel is now a 50 per cent partner in this three-tower condo development at 490 St. Clair West in midtown Toronto. (Courtesy Canderel)

Canderel is in, BentallGreenOak is out, and KingSett Capital has transitioned to a lending partner for a three-building condominium project in midtown Toronto.

KingSett and BentallGreenOak had plans for a three-tower development on a 1.91-acre site at the northeast corner of St. Clair Avenue West and Bathurst Street, beside St. Michael’s College School, but Canderel recently paid $102.43 million for a 50 per cent stake in the property. The deal took BentallGreenOak out of the picture and left KingSett remaining involved as a lender for the project, Canderel vice-president and chief operating officer Ben Rogowski told RENX in an exclusive interview.

“Our experience with KingSett and our reputation of following through on the commitments we make gave them comfort in trusting us, that we would get to the finish line,” said Rogowski. “It certainly was a complicated process because of the nature of the property and the opportunity. It took some good teamwork on everyone’s behalf to get here.”

Montreal-headquartered Canderel acquires, develops and manages office, retail, industrial, residential and mixed-use real estate. It was attracted to the St. Clair and Bathurst site because of its close proximity to three modes of public transit, a large grocery store, parks, restaurants and other amenities.

Plans for the St. Clair and Bathurst site

Canderel also likes what the site itself has to offer, with its 361 feet of frontage on St. Clair and 212 feet of frontage on Bathurst.

Zoning is already in place and there were plans for a 35-storey tower, two more of approximately 30 storeys and approximately 10,000 square feet of retail at grade spread across the three buildings. There will be one-bedroom, two-bedroom and three-bedroom units in the BDP Quadrangle-designed buildings, with an opportunity for some much larger suites in one of them.

“There will be a range of units that will cater to the full spectrum of buyers out there,” said Rogowski. “The beauty of a project like this is that you’ve got the opportunity to cater to everyone.”

There will also be a daycare centre and a seniors centre on the site as part of a Section 37 agreement with the City of Toronto, bringing the buildings’ total square footage to around 900,000, Rogowski added.

Canderel vice-president and chief operating officer Ben Rogowski. (Courtesy Canderel)

A park will be located on the southwest corner of the property and a privately owned, publicly accessible space will extend north from the park to the driveway between the property and St. Michael’s, which was the original owner of the site and had leased a portion of it to a gas station before selling in the previous decade.

“There will be some modest changes that you typically see in moving from a zoning approval to a site plan approval,” said Rogowski. “But, we’re not proposing to change any of the material items.”

A site plan application will be submitted within a month and it’s anticipated sales will start in the first quarter of 2022. Canderel would prefer to start construction as soon as possible after that, but it will depend on the project’s sales success.

“Ideally it’s one build-out, but we’ve got the ability to build it out in two phases if that’s what the market tells us,” said Rogowski.

Canderel and KingSett’s St. Clair Village

Canderel and KingSett are equity partners in the St. Clair Village condo development that’s located a few blocks to the west at 900 and 908 St. Clair Ave. W.

The 12-storey, 122-unit BDP Quadrangle-designed 900 St. Clair West is part of the first phase. The building received plenty of interest from local downsizers and is 90 per cent sold, with a handful of three-bedroom suites still available.

Foundation work is progressing and is close to grade. Occupancy is scheduled for the summer of 2022.

The site plan approval process is underway for 908 St. Clair West. The hope is to launch sales this summer and construction next summer. Original plans were for the 12-storey building to have 169 one-, two- and three-bedroom units.

“What we’ve seen at 900 (St. Clair West), which caught us off guard in a good way, was a lot more demand than we originally anticipated from people who wanted to combine units,” said Rogowski. “We’ve sold half-a-dozen-or-so combined units that were originally about 15 units.

“We’ve set up 908 in a way that will allow us to respond to that demand should it be there as well.”