If you’ve been paying attention to Toronto real estate lately, you know price drops are the norm — not multi-million-dollar price hikes.
But 86 Dalhousie St. clearly didn’t get that memo.
The graffiti-covered mixed-use building, located steps from Church St. and Dundas near Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU), has just hit the market for $5,880,000 — despite being listed for just $1,850,000 last year.
An aerial shot of the building.
So what changed? Honestly… not much. Except for the pitch.
Last year’s listing positioned the building as a boutique four-unit apartment asset with serious upside for investors willing to roll up their sleeves.
The construction office.
Now, the marketing leans heavily into its mixed-use possibilities, pitching it as a blank canvas for schools, clinics, dorm-style housing, or commercial conversion.
Located in one of downtown’s busiest pockets, 86 Dalhousie St. sits right in the middle of a neighbourhood that’s been rapidly reshaped by the expansion of TMU, the constant buzz of Yonge-Dundas Square, and the endless foot traffic flowing between the Eaton Centre and the Dundas streetcar line.
Right now, the building itself is more “opportunity” than turnkey investment.
Configured as four separate units, the layout includes a large multi-bedroom apartment on the second floor, a two-bedroom unit and bachelor suite on the main level, and an unfinished basement space that still houses working furnaces and utilities.
A photo of the kitchen from last year’s listing.
The property was previously used as a construction office and will be sold vacant, leaving the future wide open for whoever takes it on next.
And that future could look wildly different depending on who buys it.
The zoning reads like a developer’s wish list — allowing everything from retail shops and restaurants to medical offices, student housing, wellness centres, and even a potential six-storey redevelopment thanks to as-of-right density permissions.
In a city where flexibility is often the real luxury, that kind of zoning is doing a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to the new price tag.
There’s also a financial carrot being dangled: the listing advertises a vendor take-back (VTB) mortgage, allowing buyers to put down 25 per cent while the seller carries financing at current bank rates for a five-year term — a move that could make the ambitious price tag a little more palatable in today’s higher-rate environment.
Of course, that nearly $4-million price jump raises eyebrows, especially in a market where projects are getting shelved left, right, and centre due to soft demand and rising construction costs.
The exterior of the building.
But whether it becomes student housing, a wellness centre, a retirement home, or a retail-heavy redevelopment, one thing feels certain: whoever buys 86 Dalhousie St. isn’t just buying a building — they’re buying a zoning by-law with big ambitions.
And in Toronto real estate, sometimes that’s where the real value lives.