
A court ruling this week determined that nearly every unit sold at the hard-pressed One Bloor West condo development will have its purchase agreement contract cancelled. According to the Toronto Star, Justice Peter Osborne approved a request by Alvarez and Marsal, the project’s monitor, to renege on 314 pre-sales. An additional 15 were deemed “economically viable.”
One Bloor West was originally meant to welcome residents by December of 2022 but has been delayed by legal battles and insolvency.
Related: Toronto’s “trophy” tower, the Ritz-Carlton, has just been sold
The Ontario Supreme Court hearing was scheduled to approve the sale-agreement cancellation so that real estate developer Tridel, which took over from Mizrahi Developments last year, can re-sell the units for higher prices. Under Mizrahi, the building was placed into receivership, and the company currently owes lenders $1.9 billion.
As Toronto Life reported previously, Tridel believes that units purchased in 2017 and 2018 under Mizrahi will fetch higher prices if they hit the market in 2026. The 314 buyers with cancelled contracts will receive refunds plus interest and will be offered the chance to repurchase 45 days in advance of the open-market sale. Their collective deposits total $105 million, and the Star reported that Tridel expects the plan to generate around $200 million in proceeds.
Justice Osborne told disappointed buyers that the outcome was imperfect but better than nothing given the developer’s Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act proceedings involving the project. “I fully appreciate the impact of this and the impact of the delays this has had on your lives and those of your families and partners,” he said.
Carly Lewis is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Wired, Interview Magazine, Pitchfork, Elle, and Maclean’s, where she is a contributing editor. Her work has been recognized by the National Magazine Awards and the Digital Publishing Awards. She reports on city life, culture—including what people do online—politics, art and crime. She received the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award for “The Murder of Ashley Wadsworth,” an investigative feature about a Canadian teenager who was killed by a man she met on social media, published by Maclean’s.
An earlier version of this article referenced reported comments from Justice Peter Osborne which suggested that Mizrahi had filed for bankruptcy. In fact, Mizrahi has not sought bankruptcy protection under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act. The court initially appointed a receiver over the developer’s assets, and the receivership has since been converted to a monitorship under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act.