If I had to pick one area of the city where I would both: a) invest, b) live, it wouldn’t be a tough decision.

I may have invested in a condo near the Drake Hotel on Queen West, but I wouldn’t want to live there.

Five years from now, I expect The Distillery District to be Toronto’s hottest locale.

And prices are still affordable….for now…

The Distillery District is unlike any other area of Toronto.

And it’s one of the city’s oldest areas as well.

This year is the 175th anniversary of the foundation of the Gooderham and Worts distillery that still remains on the site at Cherry & Mill Streets, just southeast of Front Street & Parliament.

Believe it or not, in the 1860’s, the Gooderham and Worts distillery was the largest distillery in the WORLD, which specialized in the exporting of fine Canadian Whiskey.

The building ceased it’s distilling operations in the 1990, over 150 years after it began, but the building remained on the site as the area became less industrialized and made way for residential living. For close to twenty years, people talked about the revitalization of this historic area, but nothing was done about it.

Much like the constant political chatter of the bridge to Toronto’s island airport, the demolition of the Gardiner Expressway, and the cleansing of Toronto’s waterfront, the talk of preserving Toronto’s heritage at the Gooderham & Worts site was ever-present, but never addressed.

Finally, in 1998, two condominiums were completed near the original distillery at 70 Mill Street and 80 Mill Street. This paved the way for future re-development. The actual distillery site was purchased in 2001, and the re-development has been under way ever since.

Currently, The Distillery District is the site of constant television and movie productions, and from a consumer perspective, is home to some of the finest bars, restaurants, and art galleries in Toronto.

(I’d like to do an entire blog post about The Distillery, perhaps tomorrow or next week)

Penthouse #10 at 80 Mill Street, priced at $589,000, is a 2-bedroom, 2-bathroom unit of 1673 square feet spread out over two levels of living space. For those of you playing along at home, that’s $352 per square foot. I’m not sure if “dirt cheap” is actually a recognized real estate term in the Ontario Real Estate Association’s 2007 Coursebook, but it should be, and there should be a picture of this unit beside the definition.

$352 per square foot. Where else in Toronto can you get that kind of value? This unit is not under a bridge (although perhaps it’s near a freeway, but so is half of Toronto), yet it’s being priced like a hovel.

The listing I featured the other day at Spire was $849,900 for only 1408 square feet!

The Penthouse at 80 Mill Street is “old” in real estate terminology, as it is now nine full years since the original possession took place. It’s hard to say how much work, design changes, and re-decorating has gone into the unit, but safe to say that it needs to be “freshened up.”

The kitchen, as you can tell from the photos, needs to be completely re-done. Even for 1998, this kitchen is very 80’s. White cabinets, white counter-tops, white appliances, and white tiles. My only other critique is that for a 1700 square foot unit, the kitchen is quite small. Newer units today are built with the recognition that kitchens are where people entertain these days! However, this leaves more room for the living space and bedrooms.

The living and dining rooms feature REAL hardwood flooring, not laminate, not engineered hardwood, and not anything like you would see in most new condos today—even $800,000 condos. This is one area where you simply cannot subtract value. However, the bedrooms upstairs feature broadloom, which I personally like so I can do my 1000 sit-ups every morning (I think I added a couple too many zero’s….), but most people prefer hardwood, hardwood, and more hardwood!

Overall the unit is….very bland. And by bland, I mean white. White is the most boring color there is. I don’t care about different shades of white either, it’s ALL white to me. I grew up in a white house, in a white room, (while presumably listening to Cream or the White Album after a hard day’s night), and it was boring. So boring, mundane, and uninteresting. My mother loves to say, “You’re so wrong! It was off-white,” but like I said—it’s all the same. A few rooms in this condo have a “feature wall” where they paint one wall a dark color and leave the rest white, but I still don’t see the appeal. Paint is the real estate equivalent of pizza in the restaurant industry—it has the largest markup on original value. Bread, cheese, sauce. $25 please! Everybody knows this. In real estate, you can paint a room for a few hundred bucks! And it goes further than any other investment you can make.

Now what is the one feature I have yet to mention about this condo that perhaps should have been said first? How about a 265 square foot outdoor patio?? Yes, I love my patios. This is more than just a patio, it’s a terrace! Looking northwest from the 13th floor, there are no obstructions to the view. BBQ’s probably aren’t permitted, but just get one anyways! The terrace spans the entire length of the unit, and could comfortably fit you and a dozen of your closest friends…

The unit comes with TWO parking spaces, but no locker.

The building is lacking in amenities, with no pool, exercise room, sauna, or tennis, but it does have a jolly-ole-fashioned “rec-room” that would probably be perfect for a game of Snakes & Ladders or Connect-Four while listening to a cassette of Right Said Fred or C & C Music Factory. (When I was in Thailand, six year old Thai kids challenged us to games of Connect-Four for 100 Bhat, and took our money over and over until we gave up. Unlike the kid in the commercial who raises his arms and exclaims “I win!” these kids just smirked…..)

All early 80’s reminiscing aside, this unit at 80 Mill Street not only represents substantial value for a downtown Toronto condominium, as evidenced by the minuscule price per square foot, but also serves as an entry-point to an up-and-coming neighborhood and vibrant social scene. I personally believe that in 5-10 years, The Distillery will become the Yorkville of downtown. That’s right, I said it. I believe that movie stars will be flocking to The Distillery instead of Yorkville, and I’m so certain in fact that I’m contemplating a purchase at Pure Spirit Living which will go up on the site in a few years.

That would be nice to have Skeet Ulrich and Keanu Reeves around for an impromptu game of Hungry Hungry Hippos…

…just in case Kevin Bacon is unable to attend…

Email this article to a friend