357 King Street West Condos – TalkCondo Discuss 357 King with Christopher Wein
- Roy Bhandari of TalkCondo interviews Christopher Wein, President of Great Gulf Homes ahead of the launch of 357 King West Condos
- Discussion on what makes Great Gulf Homes consistently one of the top builders in the GTA
- Wein discusses why Great Gulf Homes remain bullish on the Toronto market, calling it one of the most Dynamic cities in North America
- Deep discussion on the Entertainment District and how Wein views King Street as one of the most important streets in Toronto
- How 357 King West Condos is changing how Great Gulf view the future of condos in the area by prioritizing the “essentials” to make it more cost effective for investors
- How you can get front of line access with TalkCondo
Get First Access to 357 King West Condos
Roy Bhandari: Good morning, everybody. This is Roy Bhandari with TalkCondo.com, and today we’re here to introduce a very special project with Christopher Wein, the President of Great Gulf Homes. Today we’re going to talk about 357 King West, which is the first major condominium launch of 2018.
First of all, Christopher, thank you very much for your time. I know you’re a very, very busy man, so we’re very fortunate to be speaking to you today.
Chris Wein: Oh, you’re very welcome. I’m happy to be here.
Roy Bhandari: Thank you very much. When we’re talking to condo investors, one of the most important things that we always tell them, and it’s an ongoing theme, is when you’re buying a new condo, more often than not, you’re buying the developer first.
Chris Wein: Yes.
Roy Bhandari: We always say that in new condos, the developer is such an I’m part of the overall equation. Why we love working with Great Gulf Homes is that you are amongst the industry, known as one of the top-tier builders, and for good reason.
First question is, in your mind, what makes Great Gulf Homes so special and unique from the other builders on the market?
Chris Wein: Sure, and you know part of it is we’ve been around for 42 years, we’ve built over 50,000 condo units and houses, not just throughout the GTA, but also we develop in other parts of North America.
What we really believe in, is we believe in design and innovation and using the latest technology to be the best builder we can be. We want to design the best possible buildings. We look at demographics, we look at market trends
We’re completely vertically integrated, so we’re not just a development company. We’re also a construction company. We’re also a condominium management company.
Roy Bhandari: Excellent.
Chris Wein: From soup to nuts, we’re involved in every aspect of the industry. We also build mixed use. We do office, we do retail. It’s important to us that we understand the holistic nature of designing communities and building communities, and what makes a great community. I think all that translates through myself and through our teams, to a better product, and I think to a happier homeowner, and to a better customer experience.
Roy Bhandari: Definitely. We sat in, at this boardroom right now. There’s a wall of awards behind us, and I think that speaks volumes. There’s a lot that you said there, and just to unpack a couple of things that I think are very key is that when we’re looking at neighborhoods and looking at buildings that out-perform other buildings within the same neighborhood, when I say out-perform, I’m talking about price per square foot or rental amount, one of the key things that we see is that the builders that are doing very well are the ones that understand market trends.
Chris Wein: Yes.
Roy Bhandari: Are they building their buildings based on these market trends?
Chris Wein: Absolutely.
Roy Bhandari: I think that’s very, very important. 2017 was a big year for Great Gulf Homes-
Chris Wein: Yes-
Roy Bhandari: Not necessarily on the new condo launches, but I know on the construction sites.
Chris Wein: Yes.
Roy Bhandari: I think you guys celebrated the completion of One Bloor-
Chris Wein: Yes-
Roy Bhandari: Which, if you look over the last decade, during the construction and condo boom, I would argue that, that’s probably the crown jewel of the Toronto condo, the growth we’ve had [crosstalk 00:03:19], the explosive growth. I think that’s something you guys should be very proud of.
Chris Wein: Thank you very much.
Roy Bhandari: One that I drove by today as well, which is a project that’s very near and dear to my heart, is [Mond 00:03:27] Condominiums.
Chris Wein: Yes.
Roy Bhandari: Mostly [inaudible 00:03:30] architecture, and it’s just a stunning building. I think what I tie all this into, is that because you own your own construction company, Great Gulf are able to do this kind of stuff to a level that other builders [crosstalk 00:03:43].
Chris Wein: Yes, no, the vertical integration within our firm makes a tremendous impact on what we’re able to achieve. We can basically stretch the envelope further with respect to design and innovation. We invest literally millions of dollars annually into research and development, where we’re always trying to look and understand better ways to build buildings, better materials to use, and we do look at those market trends-
Roy Bhandari: It shows, it shows-
Chris Wein: Thank you-
Roy Bhandari: In the final product. I do have to say that. One of the other areas that you guys were very busy last year, is site acquisitions.
Chris Wein: Yes.
Roy Bhandari: I’m not going to go into all the different sites, but I think one of the things that I do want to touch in, is that it shows your continued bullish nature on the Toronto market. I’d love you to just touch on that a little bit.
Chris Wein: Sure, yeah, no, I believe heavily in the Toronto market. I think that if you look at the GTA and you compare it, if you look at it from a North American perspective, we still out-perform every city in North America with respect to immigration, growth, economy, job creation. It really is a dynamic, dynamic city.
I think what’s fascinating about Toronto is if Toronto was an American city, you’d have endless stories written about it. You’d hear all the time on CNN and FOX and so on, that’s all they’d talk about.
Because it’s Canada, we’re a little bit more shy, we’re a little bit more subtle. I don’t think as Canadians we recognize how strong Toronto is as a global city, and I travel the globe both for my work and also for leisure.
Toronto really has come into its own in the last several years. I think we’ve seen 10 years of incredible growth in Toronto. Since 2007, I think we’ve seen nothing yet. I believe the next 10 years are going to be far greater. I think that Toronto really is going to become the new, for pardon the pun, the new New York City of the continent.
We’re now larger than Chicago, and there’s many demographers and statisticians that estimate that Toronto will be bigger than L.A. within the next 25 years, so that’s miraculous. It is an amazing place with amazing diversity, and Canada is an incredible country. I think Canada has never been more well respected on the world stage than it is today. I think we’re just going to see continued growth.
I think as a major Toronto-based developer, we need to continue to invest in our hometown, and we’re going to continue to invest in our hometown. That’s why, if anything, although we’re growing across North America, we are still growing enormously within the Toronto market, and will continue to. That’s something I believe heavily in.
Roy Bhandari: Great. I don’t think I could have said it any better. I really think that was great. I want to transition now from Great Gulf to the location of 357 King, where in the heart of the entertainment district, which in itself has blossomed, again, over the last five to 10 years.
Chris Wein: Yes.
Roy Bhandari: What’s interesting about this is that this is almost like a return home for Great Gulf, because King is [inaudible 00:06:54] of the Hudson, was probably one of the first condominium buildings, high-profile condominium buildings-
Chris Wein: Absolutely-
Roy Bhandari: In this neighborhood. It really set the tone for where this neighborhood came. It’s sort of like a homecoming for you guys, coming full circle.
Chris Wein: It is, yeah, and we love the neighborhood and certainly did some great projects there. We had the Hudson, as you said. We have Morgan, we have Charley. We were one of the pioneers of King West and really helped pioneer residential living in the entertainment district.
Now, in the past year, we’ve done a number of acquisitions around 357 King, including the two Frank Gehry towers on either side of Duncan, as well as a number of other sites. We’re really seeing now, we believe that this is kind of the second coming of the King West neighborhood.
In the beginning when we were there as pioneers, it was really trying to create the entertainment district. I think what’s happened now, if you look at the city, is the central business district has really merged with the entertainment district, and especially within the major block between University and Spadina, I think King Street is turning into an extension of the central business district.
You have the ability to access Path in that area, you have a number of high-profile office developments starting to go up, Thomson Reuters, just in the last quarter and now it’s that they’re moving their global digital headquarters to that neighborhood.
You have things that are happening at the Well, with respect to Ally doing some amazing office development and RioCan doing some enormous retail development. I think that the King West neighborhood is really going to be the most dynamic, most mixed-use, most diversified, exciting neighborhood in all of Toronto.
I think what’s most fascinating is when we look at Toronto, we talked about Bloor Street, we love Bloor Street, we like the Yorkville area, but Yorkville is kind of a lot of what Toronto was, and King Street is what Toronto is going to be. [crosstalk 00:09:00]
Roy Bhandari: I love that you make that distinction, because what we always have said and what we’re starting to see happen now, is that Yorkville is sort of conservative luxury.
Chris Wein: Exactly.
Roy Bhandari: What we’re seeing in the entertainment district, and we’re seeing it in a big way-
Chris Wein: Absolutely-
Roy Bhandari: This younger vibe, and we’re seeing it with the hotel that are coming into the area, the Bisha that just opened next door, is with this rooftop restaurant, it’s a beautiful area, [Noblu’s 00:09:24] going to be coming into the area, and they’re choosing the entertainment district out of any neighborhood in Toronto that they could choose, they’re choosing to set up-
Chris Wein: Correct-
Roy Bhandari: In this area, which again, I think speaks so, speaks volumes for this area.
Chris Wein: Absolutely, and I think that what happens is cities mature over time, and I agree with your analogy completely. We think of New York very similarly. There’s Yorkville will always be like Park Avenue-
Roy Bhandari: Correct-
Chris Wein: Like Fifth Avenue, it’s always going to be the sort of 5th and 57th, where Trump Tower is. There’s always going to be a need for that more traditional, more historical luxury neighborhood. If you look at New York, the exciting things are not happening in that neighborhood. The exciting things are happening in the meatpacking district, in Chelsea, SoHo. That’s where there’s all the dynamism is, that’s where all the hottest restaurants are going, that’s where the highline is. That’s frankly where Hudson Yards is.
Development in New York history is actually in meatpacking and Chelsea. It’s not over at Park Avenue and Trump Towers, so all cities go through this sort of maturing process. That’s why I say the King West neighborhood, and I don’t refer to it as the entertainment district anymore. I really believe it’s merged with the central business district.
I actually think of it more as the cultural and economic hub of Toronto. I think that over the next decade, we’re going to see that entire district transform to be the cultural hub. It is where tourism is going to be centralized. It’s where business is going to be centralized.
We’re looking at a couple of hotel projects as well, in that neighborhood, at developing some. It is amazing that the five-star hotels and all the sort of new, hot brands are looking in King West. They’re not looking, necessarily, in Yorkville or some of the more traditional neighborhoods of the past.
Roy Bhandari: What I find amazing is that we’ve just had a five-minute discussion on the entertainment district. We’ve not even mentioned proximity to the sports, proximity to the restaurants, proximity to all … We mentioned the financial district, but it really has become the work, live, play neighborhood-
Chris Wein: Absolutely-
Roy Bhandari: When you start to unpack everything that there is to do outside of the suite, downstairs once you’re outside the lobby, everything is there. You’ve got the theater run along King Street. You’ve got steps to the Rogers Centre where you would get the best musicians and concerts every week.
Chris Wein: Absolutely.
Roy Bhandari: You’ve got the baseball stadium, you’ve got restaurant row for its historical nature, you’ve got those restaurants around there. You’ve got the celebrity chefs coming into town all the time. We’ve not even began to talk about what it is now, there’s so much excitement about what it’s going to become and what’s in the pipeline. Already today, that there’s so much to do in that neighborhood and-
Chris Wein: Absolutely-
Roy Bhandari: We saw a few years ago, there was a lot of condominium projects that launched and came and what we’ve seen is the absorption of these condominiums into the market has been incredible. There’s no rental availability, resales go up on the market, they’re snapped up.
What that tells us, is that the demand to live in this neighborhood is very, very high-
Chris Wein: Absolutely-
Roy Bhandari: It’s because of all these reasons that we’ve-
Chris Wein: Correct-
Roy Bhandari: That we’ve talked about. I do want to shift gears now and talk specifically about 357 King Street West. It’s at a great location on the southwest corner of King & Blue Jays Way-
Chris Wein: Correct-
Roy Bhandari: It is a 42-story tower with 324 suites.
Chris Wein: Yes.
Roy Bhandari: Tell us a little bit something, a little bit about what makes this condominium special.
Chris Wein: Sure. This is an interesting one, because I would say that 357 King is an evolution for Great Gulf in the sense that we’re now looking, we’re examining the neighborhoods that we’re in, and everything we just talked about with King West is exactly true. It’s just getting better and better as time goes by, and as we build these developments out, and as more density comes to King West, there’s going to be more to do, more amenities, more [crosstalk 00:13:26], more energy.
Why I say it’s a bit of an evolution, is what we did with 357 King was, we looked at it and said what’s different about some of the projects that are being built in other cities, other dynamic cities around North America, compared to what happens in Toronto? What happens in places like New York and so on, in these very vibrant, exciting neighborhoods?
What ends up happening is, and what we see, and if you go to New York now you see it, is you see sort of slimmer, lower-density point towers, less amenities, no parking, small lobbies, and really why I say it’s an evolution, is what happens is people are starting to recognize they want to live in the neighborhood, and the neighborhood offers so much, like an incredible amount, that really, what is the purpose of the condominium unit and the condominium building itself?
The purpose is, it’s a place to sleep, it’s a place to rest, it’s a place to make dinner. It’s a place of respite and a place of rest and sanctuary, but you don’t need to have swimming pools and all sorts of crazy amenities, because do you really want to be sitting in your condo in a party room by yourself? No. You’re in the most exciting neighborhood in North America.
You want to be out on the sidewalk. You want to be going to the Rogers Centre, going to the Four Seasons Centre, going to Roy Thomson Hall, going to all the bars, the clubs, the restaurants, enjoying the shopping, getting on the subway, heading to work.
We’ve designed the building in a very particular way to be extremely efficient. You know, our tagline is essential. It’s what’s essential-
Roy Bhandari: Perfect-
Chris Wein: It’s really to take a book out of New York living. When you live in New York and when you look at condominiums in New York and so on, New York City condominiums are all about the surrounding area, and all about celebrating the neighborhood. They’re not about putting in a whole bunch of expensive amenities and costs that are going to drive up your operating costs and your condo fees and so on.
We recognize Toronto’s become a very expensive city. We recognize that the real estate market has continued to increase in a very beneficial way for investors, but in many ways, affordability is an issue. With this particular building, we tried to take that into effect, and to really think about not just how much it costs people to buy a condominium, but the associated cost with operating the condominium, paying the condo fees, paying for the amenities, and so on.
Roy Bhandari: For sure.
Chris Wein: That’s why we’ve slimmed it down and really made it about the essentials. One of the things that’s most dramatic about this project, we don’t have a parkade. It’s one of the first projects in all of Toronto where we, especially with a building of this size, 42 stories, but we eliminated the parkade. Why did we eliminate the parkade?
If you live in this neighborhood, there’s absolutely no reason, especially with technology, with Uber and Lyft and car share programs and so on, there’s absolutely no reason that you need to have an automobile. We think people will save money by not owning an automobile, that they can spend enjoying the neighborhood, whether it be on sporting events, cultural events, food, beverage, so on.
The subway is literally a minute walk away. The path is a minute walk away. The central business district is right there. There’s nothing that you can’t access by pedestrian. Then with the new King Street pilot, which we’re big supporters of, King Street’s going to turn into an amazing transit and pedestrian street, and like other great pedestrian streets in great cities around the world, I think that’s just going to add more to the fabric of it.
Why, why have a parkade that ultimately someday is not even going to be used? What we did do alternatively to help people out, is we do have a car share program inside the building. There will be 18 car shares. Then of the three or four or 500 residents that enjoy the building, when they need an automobile they’ll have the ability to go down the elevator, straight into a direct access car share program, jump in the car, and if they need to drive up north or something, they can use the car share.
The rest of the time they’re going to be enjoying that neighborhood. What they’re really going to be enjoying is the savings they have, because they’re not going to have to spend extra money on condo fees, and so on and so forth.
Roy Bhandari: Excellent.
Chris Wein: Then with the units, same thing. We took the units and we really tried to create as much efficiency as possible. This building has a large amount of three-bedroom units, and many developers are staying away from three-bedroom units because they’re worried.
What we did instead is we created an extraordinarily efficient three-bedroom unit. We created a three-bedroom unit that really in most other developments, would be a two-bedroom unit. Through clever design and better engineering, we were able to get that extra bedroom and whether you’re an end user or whether you’re an investor, I personally, I would take the extra bedroom. Why? Because as an investor from a tenant perspective, I can then attract different tenants, more tenants, I could attract families. More importantly, I can take that three-bedroom, and rent it to three different young people.
Roy Bhandari: We’re seeing a lot more of that in the market.
Chris Wein: Co-living is huge. From when I put my investor hat on, I would rather pay less and have three bedrooms that I can rent to three individuals than to have three one-bedroom units that are going to cost me a lot more money.
Roy Bhandari: For sure.
Chris Wein: Form an efficiency perspective, it’s also more efficient because we’re in the … You mentioned it. King Street is the dining and culinary center of Toronto, which is the dining and culinary center of Canada. You’ve got the best restaurants all the way from food trucks to five-star sort of Michelin-star restaurants like Alo and such. You’ve got the entire bandwidth, and you have the diversity of every kind of food you could ever imagine.
Do we need to have big kitchens and things like that? No, because if you live in that neighborhood, that’s not what you’re doing. I would say that it’s New York-style building, it’s a European-style building, because if you go to any of the great European capitols, the buildings are much more about just having the essential needs of the homeowner, and not having a whole bunch of extras that just end up costing everybody money, and nobody ends up using.
That’s why even the name, 357 King, we didn’t give it a name because buildings don’t need names. That’s the greatest address. King of [Bujais 00:19:42] Way, you can’t think of a better address in Toronto, especially when you think of the future. Why not celebrate the address, celebrate the location? That’s what this building’s all about.
We’re creating a building that’s going to be affordable, not just to buy today but to operate long term that’s going to have the unit that’s exactly efficient to what your needs are, whether you’re a one-bedroom person or a three-bedroom person and you’re going to have at your fingertips, not your doorstep, every world class amenity you can imagine, in that neighborhood.
Roy Bhandari: I think that’s amazing. I think what’s so interesting is that again, we take it back to the Hudson as an example. Back then you were building a building in a neighborhood that we’re creating a vision, and now we’re building a building in an area that is developed, and you’re really able to celebrate-
Chris Wein: Absolutely-
Roy Bhandari: What that neighborhood is all about, which I think is an amazing evolution for this company, as well.
Chris Wein: No, no, it absolutely it. What’s exciting about it is, we do have a number of other projects coming forward, even the sub-district. We now see this neighborhood as a master planned design, and we’re going to continue to augment and add other developments and other pieces.
As I mentioned earlier and has been reported in the press, we did buy the Mirvish site, which are the two Frank Gehry designed towers. They’ll be the two tallest towers in all of Canada [crosstalk 00:21:03].
Roy Bhandari: Very exciting project.
Chris Wein: We’re thrilled about that. That project, we’re going to great a little differently. That project, given its scale and its magnitude, right now I’m looking for a five-star hotel partner.
Roy Bhandari: Excellent.
Chris Wein: That just adds to that neighborhood.
Roy Bhandari: For sure.
Chris Wein: The fact that we’re literally almost kitty corner to King and Blue Jay Way or 357 King, 357 King is going to benefit from the fact that Great Gulf is continuing to invest into the King Street neighborhood and we see all these projects as different building blocks and different interlock.
Some would say well why don’t you just do another 357 King at the Mirvish site? Because I want to do something different, because I want to add and augment to the neighborhood. 357 King, those buyers are going to benefit, benefit greatly from the fact that in a very short period of time, we’re going to be bringing out those Frank Gehry towers.
We also have the corner of King and Spadina, where the current [LCBO 00:21:55] is. We’re going to put a very luxurious tower, 48 stories, on that corner as well. That is going to help elevate the neighborhood even further.
Then we have the site at King and Spadina, or sorry, Spadina and Adelaide, where we’re going to do another very large, mixed-use, will include office, retail, as well as residential, multiple residential towers. That’s going to be an exciting site.
There’s just an enormous amount of things happening in the district and when you zero back down to what’s the center, if you think of King Spadina as a district, what’s the center? The center happens to be 357 King.
I love that my colleagues at Lifetime who I’m very close to built Bisha, I think Bisha is fabulous. I agree with you, those are the types of hotels we need coming to the city. The fact that Bisha’s our neighbor is wonderful. We believe so much in Bisha, and we’re so thrilled to have Bisha there. That’s where we’re going to be hosting the launch.
We’re going to launch this project at Bisha, not because Lifetime’s a competitor, but because they’re colleagues and we actually respect what they’ve done to the King Street neighborhood and how they’ve actually helped to add another layer of culture to this dynamic, dynamic neighborhood.
Roy Bhandari: It’s an exciting time to be in this neighborhood. I think there’s no question about it. I’m excited about your excitement, which is great. You mentioned the launch. We’ve already been talking to our clients about this project.
For clients that are interested in 357 King, is there anything else that you can add that speak to the investor to say this is the building to be in?
Chris Wein: I think there’s a couple things. As I said, this building I specifically designed, I had a vision for it. My vision for it was really to design it with the investor in mind. It doesn’t mean that I don’t think about end users. I love end users. I’m an end user. I live in a condo myself. I live in Yorkville. I love condo living, I love raising a family in a condo.
The reason I say that I put the investor’s hat on, to some extent, because in my mind, it benefits both. The investor and the end user are not that different. What matters to them? What matters to them is that they’re getting good value for what they pay for, that long term, the operating costs and the costs associated around condominium fees and so on stay low, and that ultimately there’s an affordability factor.
For the end user, they need affordability because this is where they’re living, and they need to have the ability to raise families and raise kids and so on, which is why we put a lot of three-bedroom units and a lot of multi-bedroom units into this project.
From the investor’s perspective, they’re needing to think of the needs of their tenants. They need to think about the needs of the renters. You mentioned, there’s nothing to rent. The rental rates, I believe in this city right now, the vacancy rate is hovering around 1% or just under 1%. That’s unheard of, it’s unprecedented in North America.
There’s a huge demand for rental product and those investors who invest in condos and then turn around and rent those units, they need to be thinking about the needs of their renters. This building was designed with that in mind, with the needs of as an investor, what do my tenants need? What do my tenants not need? How can I get the best return possible?
We’ve also looked at the finishes. We’ve made sure that we’re putting in finishes into this building that are extremely durable, that are designed more for commercial use.
We’re now thinking more of our high-rise condo buildings as commercial buildings, so we’re looking at systems, whether it be elevator systems, HVAC systems, you know the end finishes and so on, so that they will stand the test of time, and that they will perform at a very high level.
Then on the fun side, the rooftop we’ve reserved on this building, so similar to Bisha-
Roy Bhandari: Yeah, we mentioned the rooftop is-
Chris Wein: The rooftop is the amenity. Again, thinking about whether it be end user or whether it be a tenant, but really thinking about the occupants of this building. Everything that you can celebrate, with respect to being in the King cultural district, you can do as a pedestrian, absolutely. That’s why the building’s very pedestrian-oriented.
However, whether you’re on the 6th floor or whether you’re on the 36th floor, not everybody gets to appreciate the vista and the view of being downtown. This is again, taking a page out of New York, where almost every New York project, whether it be a boutique hotel or whether it be a condo, they really love doing rooftop patios and rooftop lounges and so on. I wanted to do the same here.
The views are miraculous, and I wanted to make sure that the person who’s buying or living on the 6th or 7th or 8th floor has the ability to appreciate what the person on the 40th floor can appreciate. We dedicated the top floor to an indoor-outdoor common amenity. It is a lounge, it’s a dining space, and it’s an outdoor terrace that is spectacular. The views are unbelievable that you get in virtually every direction.
You get gorgeous light views, the CN Tower, the central business district, and you really get to understand what living in the heart of the most dynamic neighborhood is. It’s an unusual thing for a condo developer to give up-
Roy Bhandari: That’s the most prime real estate [crosstalk 00:27:15]-
Chris Wein: The prime real estate, the penthouse, but again, this building wasn’t really designed about penthouses, this building was designed more to ensure that every resident in this building, regardless of where they’re located, can appreciate and celebrate the location, and celebrate the joy of being part of the 357 King community.
I think that is an evolution moving forward and definitely with the larger units that we put into the building, if there are families living in the building or if there are people cohabiting, which I agree with you is huge, having the ability to have common areas that allow you to get out of your individual unit and appreciate the space within the building without a high cost, is huge, and the rooftop does that.
The other amenity that we’ve changed, you know we obviously have a beautiful gym, because fitness is very important to everyone. We have an enormous amount of bike parking, because we understand the need for bicycles in this particular neighborhood and the fact that there’s great bike paths on both Richmond and Adelaide.
More importantly, we also put in some, what I would coin as sort of internal WeWork type space. The other thing we’re recognizing is a lot of people are working from home, there’s consultants, they’ve got all sorts of needs around having the ability to have some common area where they can set up a laptop and feel like they can do some work and not be within their unit itself, maybe meet some people, maybe have some meetings and so on.
We did create a space that really is designed, rather than creating a space that’s designed to look like a cocktail lounge without a bartender, we designed a space that actually feels more like you’re at WeWork, or you’re in a Starbucks, and where a whole bunch of people can co-habitate at the same time and be on their laptops and doing work and enjoying each other’s company while being productive.
I think that, that’s also an amenity of the future, that a lot of concurrent condo projects don’t have. We really are looking at where demographics are heading and what the trends are. I believe that, that’s … Working from home and having the ability to have space where you can go and set up a laptop is really what the future is all about.
Roy Bhandari: I agree.
Chris Wein: Live, work, play, you can do it all at 357 King.
Roy Bhandari: I love it. It’s interesting that you say that, because the first thing we said in this interview was, one of the things that set developers apart today is identifying those market trends and building towards that, so I love how that came full circle.
Chris Wein: Perfect. Thank you.
Roy Bhandari: We’re really excited about 357. We can’t wait to introduce our clients to it.
Chris Wein: Excellent.
Roy Bhandari: I want to thank you again for your time today, and we hope to bring our clients to you-
Chris Wein: Perfect-
Roy Bhandari: Over the next few weeks.
Chris Wein: Great, you’re very welcome. [crosstalk 00:30:09] Thank you.
