Hello all, I have been on vacation for the past 2 weeks and was a bit surprised to see some recent postings on Langston Hall.
I have been quiet on posting anything on Langston Hall for a while as I was in the process of backing out of my purchase agreement after some investigations and snooping around. Cancelling my purchase agreement was relatively easy with no questions asked as the developer failed to complete the building by the Tarion's Outside Occupancy Date which is typically 12- or 24-months after the Occupancy Date on the purchase agreement. I had my entire deposit returned without any penalty. There were also a few other purchasers of Langston Hall which I am aware of who also followed suit. All those who cancelled their purchase agreement are also entitled to the Tarion's maximum claim for Delayed Occupancy Compensation. The maximum amount is unfortunately not very much compared to how much property values has appreciated over the past few years, but at least it is something.
I was supportive of the development and my purchase for a while despite hearing lots of unfavourable rumours and gossip on Del Terrelonge and his business, mostly regarding the unimaginatively slow completion of the very boutique Templar Hotel. But as a residential architect with a background in real estate and marketing, I later found their attitude and managing of this development rather bizzare and senseless. I wasn't very happy that 8 extra floors were added to the building almost doubling the number of units, but it was still at a very boutique and exclusive 54-units and I wanted the development to continue through regardless. What I don't understand was they made no effort in marketing or selling the remaining and added units in a very hot market, which made me question the developer and did some further investigating.
The Site Plan Application for the heightened building was supposed to be submitted for approval two years ago, but according to the City nothing was ever submitted to this date. Contacting various consultants on the development team I was surprised to learn that they haven't heard from the developer and no work has been done on the heightened building and the redesign relating to it.
Meanwhile there were a number of turnovers on staff overlooking the sales of Langston Hall. The sales and marketing was originally supposed to be managed by Sotheby's, however according to one of my colleagues at Sotheby's there was some tension with the development and Sotheby's was not involved in the sales. A former sales assistant at Sotheby's left and eventually became "director of development" of Langston and handled the sales. There have been two other people that taken over that position which made communication a little more complicated. The current acting development manager for Langston Hall also happens to be the general manager for the Templar Hotel. Strangely Sotheby's is still mentioned on the Langston Hall website and their marketing.
The phone number for the sales office of Langston Hall had an automated greeting but had no way of leaving messages or be directed to a human being. I had contacted the developer regarding this which was never fixed and after a few months the phone number was disconnected. Likewise the phone number and fax numbers for Rhed and the Templar Hotel was been interchanged with each other which I found rather odd, confusing and unprofessional. And as most of you already know, Rhed's website is just painfully hard to navigate and has very limited information, the domain unprofessionally has a couple numbers after their name and the website itself doesn't even list a phone number or an address. For a multi-disciplined design firm this is unacceptible.
During this whole time I along with other purchasers were very disappointed and frustrated that there has been next to no communications from the developer, which for a development that has sold about 20 units wouldn't be such a problem. I did talk to the developer a few times to get an update which involved showing up at the Templar Hotel unannounced which I appreciated them spending the time to talk, though I wasn't very satisfied with their numerous excuses and their very defensive comments.
I was also following the two other developments that Rhed/Templar Developments are currently building and those buildings are also moving incredibly slow. The Wellington Street Lofts which is a renovation of an existing building just west of Bathurst Street into 6 work/live lofts has so far been in construction for almost 2 years with still a lot more work to be done still. Citizen House, which was conceived a number of years ago, which is a satellite extended-stay urban house for the Templar Hotel has stood as steel skeleton with no progress for over 9 months.
A fellow purchaser of Langston Hall spoke to a representative who was providing financing to Langston Hall and other of Rhed's developments and learned that they were also doubtful that the project will proceed successfully.
I also learned that Del has been trying to pitch this development to another developer for almost two years, but with little success. The site is very small and challenging and limits any profitable high-rise condo development. The Entertainment District is already saturated with a ton of high-rise condos and to start from square one and propose a redesigned 30- to 40+ storey condo tower, which is what most developers would want to do, would involve lots of time work and hurdles. The site for Langston Hall 2 on Peter Street was also heard to be pitched to another developer, but that is an even more difficult site to build on and Del's original design which calls for an impossibly slim 39-storey tower with 35 2-storey units with direct elevator access would be an extremely hard sell in our market. Like the first phase, no progress or city submissions were ever made to the City for approval.
To backtrack, I was one of the last purchasers of the development before they hit the 60% sales mark and marketing and sales were halted. I paid about $620/sq.ft. including parking and locker which I thought was an extremely good deal considering the unprecedented level of features and finishes which rivals the likes of the Shangri-La but on a more progressively modern level. There were other purchasers who bought when the development was first launched almost two years before I bought and they have paid about $450/sq.ft. which is less than today’s resales. Though only about 20 units have been sold to date, even to sell the remaining 34 units at an average of $850/sq.ft. (which I think is a more fair price), it would be difficult for a developer to make a decent profit.
All of the very high-end condo developments are having a hard time selling units these days (with lots of investor resales and assignments on the market) and Langston Hall will be especially difficult as it doesn’t have the reputation and the recognized name brand behind it. It also doesn’t help when there isn’t a decent marketing team behind it, especially when the starting price for a 1-bedroom unit is priced at $744,000, as currently stated on their website.
Langston Hall sounded too good to be true and it definitely is. Designers/architects shouldn’t play the role as a developer, which is something Del tried to do but unfortunately he doesn’t have the experience, business expertise and savvy to do it right. I appreciated Del’s intensions but he hasn’t taken any responsibility or accountability on his shortcomings which has held on to the deposits of the 20 buyers for a number of years during one of Toronto's hottest real estate booms in history.
With what I have learned I could say that this project is pretty much dead.
