Why Lindvest’s New Transit-Friendly Project is ‘Future Perfect’

Lindvest Properties' pioneering condo project at Don Mills and Eglinton is across the road from a soon-to-be-built Crosstown LRT station and a new TTC bus terminal. "It's why we call the site future-perfect," says VP Michoel Klugmann.

We snapped Michoel (right) with Lindvest sales director Joseph Alberga on the property, soon home to Sonic, a 28-storey tower that'll share a podium with a second building, plus two townhouse blocks—650 units total.

Lindvest—formerly H&R Developments' New Homes, the residential arm of H&R group of companies—acquired the site in 2014, just as preliminary work was beginning on the Crosstown LRT. "This area needed to mature to be attractive for development," Michoel tells us. "For that to happen you need transit." (Lindvest's president is George Hofstedter, the H in H&R.)

Sonic is across the road from the Crosstown's underground Science Centre Station, at the southwest corner of Don Mills and Eglinton, planned to connect via retail-lined concourse to a new TTC bus terminal on the northeast corner.

Michoel says Sonic's property will be publicly accessible, with open landscaped areas and walkways leading to transit (a new public street will bisect the property). The site's previous owners had a city-approved plan, but failed to bring the project to market, Michoel says, and the design and suite layouts screamed "suburbia." His team rejigged it into a downtown-style condo, with 25k SF of amenities.

Above is B.Streets at Bathurst and Bloor, a nine-storey condo with street-level retail that marked Lindvest's maiden project as a rebranded entity and the first condo of its kind in The Annex.

The company's current development slate includes Brownstones at Westown, a townhouse community at Weston and Sheppard; and Cornell Woods, a mixed-use development at Highway 7 and Bur Oak Drive with condos, office and retail. As for future downtown projects, "we're looking for opportunities like everyone else," Michoel says.

Here's Science Centre Station. Sonic is the first condo at Don Mills and Eglinton. But the area's been attracting attention and development dollars of late, says Michoel, pointing to the nearby Aga Khan Museum and the Celestica site across the road, where Diamond Corp, Lifetime Developments and Context Development plan a project with office, retail and residential (see our related story). "First movers have a tremendous advantage," he says. "Guys who want to build here a few years from now will be paying a lot more."