Upcoming Toronto residential development will feature a mix of townhomes, mid- and high-rise buildings, and community spaces
Leon’s Furniture Ltd. has announced that it has received municipal approval to rezone the 40-acre parcel of land surrounding its Toronto headquarters, making way for the development of approximately 4,000 new homes.
The area, which is situated beside the interchange between Highways 400 and 401, will include a “new flagship retail store and corporate headquarters on the site” on top of the 4,000 homes.
The residential development will feature a mix of townhomes, mid- and high-rise buildings, and community spaces, Leon’s said.
The Leon’s HQ has been on the parcel since 1969.
“I think there’s a huge opportunity in the housing market,” said Michael Walsh, president and CEO of Leon’s Furniture. “We’re really excited about today [and] in the future. For me, this isn’t us taking our eye off the ball as it relates to what got us here, which is furniture, mattresses, and everything else we sell.”
Leah Zlatkin, COO at Mortgage Outlet, suggests that a lower-interest rate environment, immigration, and a sluggish economy may keep prices steady in the Greater Toronto Area.
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Walsh added that Leon’s will be finishing a “secondary plan” with the municipal government, slated for completion by mid-2025.
“Phase one will be building a new head office and a new retail store and then phase two is part of a master planning of the community,” Walsh said. “We work with the city on the secondary plan phase … we’re hoping to have that done sometime in 2025 and things can move along a lot quicker now that we have the regeneration area decided on.”
Leon’s has previously unveiled plans to create a real estate investment trust. At the time of the announcement in May 2023, Leon’s said that its portfolio had more than 5.2 million square feet of real estate.
“We’ve got parcels of land across the country,” Walsh said, although he stressed that the REIT’s growth might need to wait until the Bank of Canada decides to ease on its policy rate.
“We really have to wait till market conditions are there,” he said. “One of the key factors is going to be interest rates coming down before we can do a REIT, which is going to be a separate company with a separate CEO and a separate board of trustees.”
