Elysium Investments Inc. has submitted official plan amendment and zoning by-law amendment applications for two new purpose-built rental apartment projects in Toronto.

Despite the condominium market being in the dumps with very few sales and almost no new construction starts, Elysium chief executive officer Sayf Hassan believes we’ve entered a “golden age of development” in Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).

“This is the controlled burn we needed for a long time,” Hassan told RENX. “The market was saturated and the barrier to entry was nothing. 

“If you had a pulse and some land you could be a developer. It became a free-for-all. Now the players that are remaining are dedicated, they’re here for a reason, they’re talented and they're committed.”

Hassan has been pushing purpose-built rentals since Elysium was founded in 2023 and he thinks it’s a great time to develop apartments in areas with easy access to public transit.

The privately held Toronto-based real estate development company now has a purpose-built rental pipeline exceeding 4,500 units and approaching a development value of $4 billion.

High Park area proposal

A project at 21-29 Oakmount Rd. and 26-36 Mountview Ave., just west of the Keele Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) station and north of the 400-acre High Park, envisions rental towers of 41 and 39 storeys rising from a shared podium and offering 873 units.

The project will be developed in partnership with International Property Group Inc. (IPG) and designed by Teeple Architects.

It will include a mix of studio, one-, two-, and three-bedroom units, more than 500 bicycle storage spaces and a limited number of below-grade parking stalls.

The site was acquired late in the summer of last year by Estonian residential and commercial real estate developer Hepsor, Elysium and Toronto-based IPG/Oikoi Living. It involved the assembly of 11 properties.

“High Park is our most beautiful natural amenity, so why would you not want people to have access to that?” Hassan said. “So far, planning has been quite supportive and the council has been quite supportive.”

Isabella Street proposal

Elysium and IPG are also partnering on a downtown project at 164-168 Isabella St. encompassing a 69-storey, Studio JCI-designed rental tower with 660 units.

There will be a mix of unit sizes, including family-friendly layouts, and the design will integrate three heritage homes that will be restored and incorporated into the building's podium.

The Sherbourne, Wellesley and Bloor-Yonge TTC stations are all within easy walking distance of the site and the building will offer 374 bicycle storage spaces.

Other planned Toronto developments

Elysium and partners Terracap and Trolleybus Urban Development have made submissions for a high-rise rental project on a half-acre site at 17-29 Glenavy Ave., approximately 150 metres from the Leaside station on the soon-to-open Eglinton Crosstown light rail transit line near Eglinton Avenue East and Bayview Avenue.

Elysium and Pinemount Developments, with investment from Hepsor, are planning a mixed-use multi-family development for a 1.78-acre site at 3406-3434 Weston Rd. acquired for $19.8 million through a receivership sale in June 2023. Municipal approvals have been received for 832 units in buildings of 39 and 35 storeys.

Applications have been submitted for two BDP Quadrangle-designed high-rise, purpose-built rental towers on a shared podium offering 851 units on a one-acre site assembled from 17 properties at 70-104 Brownville Ave. near the Mount Dennis transit hub that’s scheduled to open this month.

Elysium worked with Trolleybus to acquire an assembly of four properties to create a half-acre site at 41-47 Talara Dr. near the Bayview and Bessarion TTC stations in north Toronto late in the spring. 

Elysium will manage construction and there are plans to develop approximately 350 rental units in a high-rise building in an area that, to this point, has been under-serviced and under-utilized.

“Our entire premise is based on partnerships and not having any ego and only doing deals if the person across from me is in a better spot at the end of the deal than he would be without the deal,” Hassan said.

Yarra will develop student housing

Hepsor is considering partnering with Elysium on Yarra, a new platform focused on purpose-built student rental (PBSR) housing to help alleviate the shortfall of available housing for college and university students in Toronto and smaller Ontario cities.

“They're diligent, thoughtful and absolutely wonderful to work with,” Hassan said of Hepsor. “We also have a couple of other partners from the Baltics who are joining us on the student rental side.”

Because of its relative proximity George Brown College, Toronto Metropolitan University and the University of Toronto, Hassan said there’s a chance the Isabella Street development could become a PBSR building, or a hybrid combining PBSR with more traditional high-rise rental units.

Yarra is consulting with students and the organizations that represent them so it knows what they want in housing and how much they can afford to pay before putting shovels into the ground. 

Hassan expects three- or four-bedroom units with built-in modern furnishing to be popular and more affordable to build and rent than one-bedroom micro-units.

“We're democratizing access to students for modern, welcoming, warm and well-located student housing, and also really leaning into the vertical format,” Hassan said, noting the highest PBSR building in the world is a 51-storey tower in Melbourne, Australia — where the Yarra River flows.

Yarra is seeking development partners for its projects and has a goal of providing 10,000 beds for student tenants within three years. 

“We have one live student rental site and maybe five more that might be closing within the next quarter,” Hassan said.