How The Wyatt Condos Addresses the Growing Demand for Family Friendly Condos Downtown

The Wyatt Condos is the newest building by Daniels in downtown east as part of the Regent Park revitalization. In this episode, Jacob Cohen – Director of Project Implementation for Daniels gives True Condos Nation a sneak peek into The Wyatt including some amazing amenities planned for families in the building.

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Andrew la Fleur:	The Regent Park revitalization program by all accounts has been a resounding success. It’s about halfway through a 15-year plan to completely rebuild this neighborhood. Now the newest condo is about to launch, the Wyatt Condominiums. On this episode, I sat down and chatted with Jacob Cohen, the director of project implementation for Daniels, to talk about the Wyatt and to talk about what’s happening and what’s new in Regent Park, so I hope you enjoy this episode.
Automated:	Welcome to the True Condos podcast with Andrew la Fleur, the place to get the truth on the Toronto condo market and condo investing in Toronto.
Andrew la Fleur:	Okay, it’s my pleasure to welcome back to the show Jacob Cohen. Jacob is the director of project implementation at Daniels. Jacob, welcome back.
Jacob Cohen:	Thanks for having me, Andrew.
Andrew la Fleur:	Yeah, great to have you again. Always like talking about Daniels projects, no big surprise. I’m a big fan of Daniels. I’ve been a big supporter of you guys for a long time, everybody knows that. Let’s find out a little bit more why in this interview again here today. Jake, I just want to ask you about the market in general. The last time we spoke, if you recall, it was about a year and a half ago now. Time flies. What’s your take on the market? What are you seeing in the market right now, the condo market overall?
Jacob Cohen:	Yeah, we’re feeling very confident over here at Daniels with regards to the condo market. Definitely the last year has been very positive, specifically in downtown east. We work in a number of different locations in Toronto and the GTA and Mississauga, Aaron [Mills 00:01:51]. The downtown east has been a really positive place for us when it comes to our development and when it comes to our condo projects. The people seem to just continue to want to be close to downtown, close to great amenities, close to streetcars and subway lines, and getting in and out of downtown as easy as possible, and that’s what really we’ve found, and that’s why I think the downtown east has been a great location for us over the last year and a half.
	The Bartholomew was an excellent success, not only the condo building, which was a bit more of a boutique style building, only 180-odd units, but also the townhouse units, the 3-story 30 townhouse units that were very much geared towards first-time home buyers looking for a family or early families or even an investment property for potentially some renters looking like students or someone that’s going to share the 3 bedrooms and split up the rent. That really pushed us in a direction here for the Wyatt, which is our next condo project and helped shape a lot of the decision-making we went with for the Wyatt.
Andrew la Fleur:	Yeah, that’s great. You’re jumping ahead and you’re going exactly where I want to go with this conversation, which is great. Just to recap everybody’s memory, so the last building that was launched in downtown east for you guys in the Regent Park area was the Bartholomew, so maybe just, like, how did that sale go? The last time we spoke was right before the sales were happening, and then the sales happened, and we haven’t spoken since. How was the launch of the Bartholomew, and how was that received?
Jacob Cohen:	The launch of the Bartholomew had huge, huge buzz. We had great support from the broker community. I think we spoke, and then it was probably, I would say, less than a week later the building, the actual condo building, was about 85% sold out within about a week, and then the townhouses, the 30 townhouses, 25 or maybe 24 of the 30 were all snatched up within the first week as well. I remember distinctly looking at the phone-in call-in list for the townhouses specifically because we had a very complicated … not complicated … a very detailed way of ensuring people would call in and get registered and log in to exactly when they could select their units, and I remember seeing the list. There was people on the list to the millisecond calling in, and there was probably a list of over 150 people looking for that type of townhouse product in the $585,000-$650,000 range, so a real sweet spot in the market that I think we really capitalized on at that time.
Andrew la Fleur:	Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I’m sure if you had your way, you would sell townhouses like that all-day long every day. You know, you would sell 1,000 of them a month if you could, but the issue, of course, is just land availability for product like that, isn’t it?
Jacob Cohen:	That’s exactly it. You know, we’re looking now at the rest of our developments to see where we can continue to introduce, where it makes sense, introduce more townhouses and more townhouse products because you’re absolutely right. You nailed it. There’s so much demand for that type of product. That said, our focus is still always, and has got to be, on the high-rise and the high-rise condo buildings, condo market, which we’re continuing to evolve our programs and evolve the units to try to bring in some of the details and some of the thinking that some of the townhouses do have and give people in the condo market some of those benefits, so that’s something that I can definitely get into when we start to talk a little about the next project.
Andrew la Fleur:	Yeah, well, let’s do that right now. Yeah, obviously, demand for townhouses and low-rises is off the charts, not to say that demand for high-rises is not good. It’s very, very high as well. You know, all the stats, I’m sure, with Daniels and any way you look at the numbers, the high-rise market is having, it looks like to be a record year as well. Yeah, let’s talk about the Wyatt. Obviously the Wyatt is the new building that is coming up in downtown east in Regent Park. What can we know about it, and like you said, what are some of the new things? I know every time you do a building in Regent Park, there’s always something new. There’s always learnings from the previous buildings that you’re bringing into it to make it better and better and better. I know you can’t spill all the beans right now because it’s not officially launched yet as of time of this recording, but what can we know?
Jacob Cohen:	Absolutely. I can definitely give you some good insight into what we’re doing for the Wyatt. I think it’s going to be a real testament to the maturity of downtown east and Regent Park as well. I think the branding and the marketing that is being done around the Wyatt is going to really capture people’s imagination in terms of living in a downtown east market that does carry with the name Regent Park but something that has matured in the Regent Park name as well. What it speaks to is local amenities. What it speaks to is an infrastructure that’s been built into the downtown east, which includes our streetcars, which includes the Regent Park Aquatic Center that is directly at your doorstep, directly across the street from the Wyatt. The new Regent Park Athletic Grounds, which is right behind the Wyatt, which has just opened up this past summer and is going to have programming by Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment with the new basketball courts and soccer field and cricket pitch, and hockey rink. It’s got a lot of those incredible amenities you’d be looking for in any market, but the Wyatt has those right at the doorstep in Regent Park, which is very exciting.
	The building exciting, it’s a beautiful building, 27 stories, and it’s 342 condo units. It has a super and a guest suite, which we always feel is important to have, especially a guest suite for people coming by. It’s got 190 parking spaces, which again speaks to the fact that you are a downtown user and lots of bike parking, lots of access to public transit and car sharing, auto share and zip car and all those sort of amenities are going to be built right into the features of the building.
	There are studios all the way up to family-friendly 3-bedroom suite designs. That’s really something that we are going to be hanging our hats on for this project specifically, is the 3-bedroom and family-friendly units. I think a lot of that has come from the learnings that we had at the Bartholomew, the learnings that we had with the townhouses in that we wanted to really accommodate for a growing Regent Park neighborhood where people have bought into perhaps earlier buildings, 1 Cole, 1 Park West, Paint Box, and maybe they bought in as first-time home buyers. Maybe they upgraded to their next unit, their 2-bedroom, and now they’re looking to continue to stay in that market and grow and evolve and maybe even grow a family in that market.
	We have 20 units specifically that have huge patios, very large terraces, that are really geared towards family-friendly units, which is a great feature that I think this building is going to have over some of the other buildings in Regent Park and even other downtown east buildings that maybe are focusing on a little bit smaller units. That’s something that’s very exciting for us for the Wyatt.
Andrew la Fleur:	Yeah, it’s very interesting, those units with terraces, the 20 units. Those will be 3-bedroom units, I assume?
Jacob Cohen:	That’s correct.
Andrew la Fleur:	Yeah, so probably 2, 3 years ago, you know, if you any downtown developer said, “I’m going to intentionally put 3-bedroom units into my building,” most people would look at them and scratch their heads and say, “What’s wrong with you? You’re never going to be able to sell those units,” but the market has changed quite a bit, hasn’t it?
Jacob Cohen:	It definitely has. I think it’s a testament to people saying, “I can live and I want to live in a condo building with a growing or potential growing family,” and that we are putting in not only the units that can allow people to do that but also amenity spaces that accommodate or that work with that as well. I’ll give you a couple little sneak-peeks of what that is. In the Wyatt for the first time, we’re doing on the fourth floor you’ll find what we’re calling the Kid Zone, which is outfitted by Mastermind Toys, which is a well-known kids toy shop, and it’s got tons of activities and toys and books and puzzles. It’s got a craft room and a play room and a cleaning counter. It’s really a very unique amenity. It’s really a space for kids of all ages to kind of … They can paint, they can explore, they can kind of learn and pretend and play, and do all those sort of things. It’s really a way for people who are living in that building to connect with their neighbors, entertain the little ones, get out of the confines of their condo and do so in a way that is a little bit more, I guess, community-oriented.
	You can absolutely go to the gym and work out and get on the treadmill and do absolutely those same things because we have that amenity, but the kid zone and the kids’ play area and this sort of like lounge meeting space is a place for people to really come and interact and programmed for the young and growing families that are coming in. We’re seeing more in this neighborhood.
Andrew la Fleur:	Wow, that’s very cool, yeah. As a dad of 3 small kids, I’m obviously very familiar with Mastermind.
Jacob Cohen:	Yeah, absolutely.
Andrew la Fleur:	Yeah, anybody who’s listening who doesn’t know, but yeah, it’s a fantastic chain of toy stores, and they focus on sort of learning toys and educational toys and that sort of thing. A very cool partnership. That’s exciting. That’s the first time that I’m hearing it. Maybe it’s a world exclusive release information about the Wyatt here.
Jacob Cohen:	Oh, it definitely is. I don’t think that [crosstalk 00:13:01] that, you’re right.
Andrew la Fleur:	That’s great. Yeah.
Jacob Cohen:	I can tell you the other thing which is a first in Regent Park for us. This is the first time we’re going to have penthouse units. We’ve had for many years had this discussion and had yet to pull the trigger on having the type of exclusive penthouse units that we thought would work. However, this building we thought really lent itself well to it, so 27 stories is the height of this building, like I said before, so we have 4 large penthouse units with very large terraces at the top of this building, which are going to be really exclusive destinations in Toronto and really unique places to live and to have views all around the city from that location. Something we wanted to do a little bit different this year and for this project that we’re very excited about.
Andrew la Fleur:	Oh, very interesting. Yeah, typically, just to let people know, so typically what you would do in your buildings is you would have penthouse suites like you mentioned, but in the Regent Park buildings that you’ve done to date, the penthouse floor, the top floor, the units have basically just been the same as the units below, the same floor plate, just would go all the way up to the very top floor. You’re saying that in this building for the first time, you’re taking more of a conventional approach with your other buildings where you break … you’re combining suites to form 4 large units on the top floor, and I’m guessing you must have upgraded finishes and that sort of a thing too.
Jacob Cohen:	That’s exactly right. That’s exactly right. We think they’re going to be really great units to buy, some great opportunities for people who kind of want that upgraded finish and feel for a downtown east environment. A couple of the other things that we also do have in this building that I’d like to mention, we have a party room, which is going to be a nice outfitted place. We definitely have an outdoor terrace with some barbecues, some seating areas, and some again, kids’ play equipment outdoors as well. You can kind of hear the trend in the theme that we’re going with here. We do have a fitness center, which is going to be fully outfitted, top of the line, quality equipment like we always do in our gyms so you can definitely drop your gym membership off and just focus and have your own gym in your building.
	Something else that’s very unique here is a boulder and cave. We have a unique space in the building. It was kind of … it didn’t have windows, it didn’t have a lot of height but had a great opportunity to put in something very unique and an active amenity. The idea is that we have almost like rock-climbing but you’re traversing not higher than about 2 or 3 feet off the ground, but you can go all the way around the room, different holds, different footholds, handholds. You can kind of traverse onto the side of the wall, almost onto the ceiling in some cases. Again, a very active, fun engaging amenity that is really can be something for all ages, which is again something that has been our theme here.
Andrew la Fleur:	That sounds really cool. I’m interested to see how that turns out. Let’s talk about the value in Regent Park. Obviously, one of the big reasons for the success over the years is, I’ve found, is the quality that you can get for the price that you pay for me is unmatched certainly in the downtown core. Why don’t you speak a little bit to that and maybe get into the other big component of the value, and that’s of course the 5% deposit program?
Jacob Cohen:	Absolutely. The value, I think you said it very well. The value in Regent Park in our communities, you’re obviously getting the Daniels brand. You’re getting the Daniels name, the Daniels quality, the Daniels service and warranty and commitment to not only during your sales process but during your actual experience once you do your pre-delivery inspection, experience when you move in, your 30 days after if you have deficiencies, your 60 days after, and your 1 year after. We are there, and we are committed to this neighborhood. We’ve been there now for 10 years. We hope to be there for another 7-10 years again if we can keep this momentum going with the rest of the phases in Regent Park, and we plan on it. We are not going in and coming out. We are there to stay.
	As a result, the value is going to continue to grow because we are dedicated to making sure the buildings look phenomenal. They’re designed by world-class architects. KPMB is one of the best architects in the world is doing the design and working drawings for this project. It really stands above a lot of the other projects from a look and a design standpoint. Again, the value for this is about getting into this market, knowing that it’s continuing to evolve and continuing to grow, and yes, we are entering phase 3 of Regent Park, but there is still phase 4 and still phase 5 in a number of years to come. I think the amenities that have grown around Regent Park and around this building specifically really speak to the growth and speak to what this market is doing. If you can be buying into a condo building under 600 a square foot in the downtown east with all of those features, I think you’re really going to be capturing something that’s very, very important and very special from a condo and a value standpoint.
Andrew la Fleur:	Yeah, and something you just can’t get anywhere else. I mean, that’s the bottom line, is shop around. That’s what I always tell people. Look around, shop around, and see if you can beat it. Let me know if you find it because I’ll buy there too. Yeah, but the value is really unmatched. The 5% program is going to be back, so a lot of people are shocked to hear it. When they hear it for the first time, they think there must be a catch. They think there’s some kind of a scam, but is it a scam? Tell us what’s going on with it?
Jacob Cohen:	No, it’s absolutely not a scam. We have a unique opportunity and a unique ability to allow 4, 5% deals in our projects. In certain projects where we can pick and choose, that comes with a long history of building first or at least getting into the ground and starting construction early because we have very good relations with our lenders, with our banks, and they trust the buyers that are coming in that will close and will have the financial capacity to close in the end. We do have the ability to offer 5% deals to a certain number of units, and that is going to be again the case with the Wyatt, which is very exciting for us and a great opportunity for people who don’t have the up front capital immediately to put a larger down payment down.
	Again, this is a bit of an exclusive offer and something that you will definitely … People will need to talk to a sales agent specifically once they start to get into some discussions about what the opportunities and options are for that because it will be a limited offer and limited to qualified purchasers, absolutely, but I will say we will be providing that to a degree in this project again.
Andrew la Fleur:	Great, great. What’s, other than the Wyatt, there’s a lot of other work going on in Regent Park and in that, and like you said, in phase 3, what else is coming down the pipe? The Wyatt will take a couple of years to be built. People who are buying in it, what can they look forward to being there when, by the time the Wyatt is finished? What else is happening?
Jacob Cohen:	Well, what’s really great about Regent Park is it is absolutely continuing to evolve. I think one major aspect that I can definitely touch on is the international commercial tenants, retail tenants that we’re starting to attract and coming into the neighborhood. I think we’re going to see, and people are going to see, further growth in terms of the retail interest in Regent Park. Obviously the shoppers [inaudible 00:21:39] mart came into 1 Park Place. We have a Wendy’s that’s coming in for food service. Subway is coming in for food service. We have our FreshCo Sobey’s grocery store, which again, providing real amenities that people need and look for when they’re thinking about a community and thinking about what’s going to attract them.
	We also have a couple of other unique ones that have come in the last couple of years, the George Brown College Fashion Exchange where a lot of at risk youth can come and receive some specialized training, prepare them for entry-level positions in the fashion industry and the apparel industry, and it’s really a unique fit to have them in Regent Park operating out of one of our retail spaces. That’s something that we’ve really enjoyed seeing as well. You know, you have something as unique as the Toronto Birthing Center, which is a location that’s an alternate birthing location for people that maybe they don’t want to go the hospital route, and this has been very well-received in the neighborhood by lots of tenants and lots of purchasers of units in the neighborhood and outside as well. That’s another unique amenity in commercial space that is coming in.
	I think I mentioned that we also have obviously the Athletic Grounds is complete, which is a wonderful feature to have. In terms of other buildings that are in the surrounding neighborhood in phase 3 that are coming, it’s very exciting. Daniels can announce that we are partnering with Chartwell Lifestyles, which is an active seniors residence industry where we’re going to be building with Chartwell an active seniors residence, which is going to be located in phase 3 of Regent Park, which is a nice addition to the neighborhood and speaks to the multi-generational communities that we’re trying to build, all the way from young families up to seniors as well that are going to be looked at and looked after in this neighborhood.
	There’s going to be a few other buildings that are going to be coming up in phase 3 that will also have some future townhouse opportunities, whether they’ll be stacked products or back-to-back, still design is in the works, trying to figure out what’s the best fit for the neighborhood, but we’re also looking at ways to better enhance the green and the green technologies that we have at our disposal right now to make potentially some net-zero units or some units that have solar opportunities where we can continue to help bring maintenance fees down and help people overall in that respect as well. A lot of different and unique things coming in Regent Park that’s very exciting.
Andrew la Fleur:	Well, that’s great, Jacob, appreciate your time today. Is there any question that I didn’t ask you or any topic that we didn’t cover that you want to make sure that we do?
Jacob Cohen:	No, yeah, I think we covered most of it.
Andrew la Fleur:	Great. Well, thank you again very much for your time and your insights into what is happening in Regent Park and downtown east and of course with the Wyatt. Looking forward to many happy customers and buyers into this building again.
Jacob Cohen:	Thank you very much, Andrew.
Andrew la Fleur:	Okay, great, we’ll talk to you soon.
Jacob Cohen:	Bye-bye.