Would You Rather Live in a Mississauga or Etobicoke Condo?

The Newinhomes.com team joined other industry professionals on the third Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) condo tour last week. For this tour, we walked along the Waterfront Trail to learn more about development along Lakeshore in Etobicoke, and then we hopped on a limo-bus to explore Mississauga City Centre.

BILD condo tour 3 Getting the BILD condo tour started on Etobicoke's Waterfront!

Our tour guide for the day was Pauline Lierman, Director of Market Research at Urbanation, Toronto’s top resource for condo market intelligence. Lierman explained that Etobicoke’s waterfront really took off in the early 2000s. There are currently around 6,200 active units in the area, and about 5,400 resale units.

Monarch has the largest chunk of condo units in the Etobicoke waterfront area. When Monarch started developing condos here, they were the first to start strategically placing balconies and terraces so that more units faced the water. They were also the first to start building smaller units, relative to what existed in the area. Many of the older units in the neighbourhood are well over 1,000 square feet, whereas Monarch’s are around 700 and 800 square feet on average.

Empire Communities is another prominent developer in the area. Around seven or eight years ago when Empire launched Beyond the Sea, the units sold like hot cakes. Those were the days when a developer could put a few hundred units on the market and sell them all in a weekend.

BILD condo tour 5 Learning more about the first condos on Etobicoke's Waterfront

Since the units are larger along the waterfront, there are a lot of end users and empty nesters. In fact, it’s quite difficult to find a rental. Which is kind of the opposite in certain areas of Mississauga’s City Centre, depending on the tower. Another major difference between the two areas is that the waterfront is super walkable, and downtown Mississauga is not at all. Etobicoke’s waterfront and downtown Mississauga aren’t exactly comparable though since they’re both completely different areas.

Although Mississauga isn’t very walkable, the city is doing quite a bit to increase foot traffic and lower residents’ dependency on vehicles, mainly by planning an LRT line along Hurontario. The transit line would be dedicated and run down the middle of the street, which is currently occupied by unnecessary medians in some areas.

BILD condo tour 11 Arriving in Mississauga

Mississauga City Centre really got cooking in 2004, mostly thanks to The Daniels Corporation. There was a mini-boom, but launches have kind of plateaued recently. Amecon and Pinnacle are still making waves with their master-plans, and Greenpark owns some land, but other than that, there’s not much underway. According to Lierman, there are a few applications in the system right now, so maybe in a year or so, we’ll see some more action.

Square One Mall is also in the process of expanding again. If you’ve been there recently, you know that it’s been a long time since the mall was an actual square. As larger retailers move into Square One, more developers and homebuyers alike may be attracted to the neighbourhood.

BILD condo tour 19 Absolute Towers by Cityzen and Fernbrook in Mississauga

Of course, we couldn’t go on a condo tour of Mississauga without stopping off at Cityzen and Fernbrook’s Absolute Towers, the condo community that put Mississauga City Centre on the map. This development, specifically the two curved towers - you know which ones we’re talking about - has been recognized around the world as one of the most innovative tower designs ever.

We ended the tour by stopping off at the Pinnacle Uptown presentation centre to chat with our old friend Anson Kwok, VP of Sales & Marketing, Pinnacle International Realty Group. The Pinnacle Uptown townhomes are under construction and are looking great. In addition to these townhomes, Pinnacle has many condo towers on the way, and will have two launching soon.

A big thanks goes out to BILD and Pauline Lierman for the great condo tour! Scroll down to check out a few more of our photos.

BILD condo tour 1 Meeting on the Humber Bay Bridge