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Posted by Jackhammer in the Toronto Local Section:

From Tuscani01 at SSC:

Tallest Condo In Canada Coming To Downtown T.O.
Friday November 16, 2007
CityNews.ca Staff

Think the chaos over the condo at 1 Bloor St. East was frenzied this week? Just wait till the real estate agents, developers and would-be flippers hear about this. What promises to be the largest condo tower in all of Canada was announced on Friday - a building that once finished, will stand 75 storeys and 343 meters tall. The "Aura" will change the face of the downtown core yet again when it's built at the corner of Yonge and Gerrard, opposite College Park. The builders say it will encompass 1.3 million square feet - with at least 1.1 million devoted solely to residential space. And what would a Yonge St. development be without business? Some 190,000 square feet will be reserved for retail space.

"I look at Yonge Street as being a street that is going to be in a major state of change over the next five to ten years, and it's only going to make this environment better," believes Michael La Brier, the president of Canderel Stoneridge, which is behind the building.

The Bloor condo is 79 storeys and this one is only 75. How can they claim bragging rights to being the tallest? A spokesman tells CityNews.ca that the Aura beats its competitor on metre and square footage size, and that each residence will actually be bigger in height than the Bloor spot - so even though it has fewer storeys, it will actually wind up being slightly taller than the other address.

Those behind the plan have yet to reveal how much it will cost you to buy a place in the complex. That may not be decided until next month. But the spokesman explains that while there will be high end and pricey luxury models on the upper floors, some of the lower tiers should be affordable - although he wouldn't say how much "affordable" is.

It's the latest in what's rapidly becoming a newly energized market. A survey released earlier this week by Remax shows condos are on fire again in this city, with a 14 per cent rise in sales over last year - and growing.

And the residences are getting taller. The number of buildings over 200 metres - about half the height of the CN Tower - will more than double, going from seven to seventeen. It doesn't surprise realtors like Paul Raszewski. He's been selling condos here for 25 years and has seen the market bloom. "Because of the fact that the house prices in Toronto have skyrocketed, a lot of the young people, young professionals cannot afford a home. Automatically their choice is to go into a condo."

The fact a riot almost broke out last week at the Bloor St. location is testimony to just how much in demand the condominiums are. "They are very well marketed properties, and some of them are in very hot locations where there may not be many more opportunities to actually build any more because there's no more land in Toronto to really build new things," Raszewski concludes.

The Aura has been in the planning stages for more than a year, undergoing seemingly endless scrutiny and changes, before the city finally approved the project. After the frenzy that accompanied the earlier unbuilt condo, this one promises to create equal fireworks. Early registrations are being accepted online but actual sales won't start until February 2008, and the new condo may not be ready for tenants until 2012.


ASTOUNDING!