‘Little house that never got sold’ at Yonge and Eglinton finally changes hands

“It looks like you should pick it up and put it somewhere else,” he said.

The owner had the opportunity to sell to the developer of the skyscraper next door around 2014, according to Kutyan.

But she refused.

She continued on in the home, at 93 Broadway Ave., until earlier this month, when it sold for more than a million dollars over asking. The last remnant of the midtown neighbourhood that once was, the property presents a unique, if somewhat quirky opportunity in an area of the city that’s seen incredible change over the decades.

Kutyan said the owner had received several unsolicited offers in the years since rejecting the developer’s proposal. Finally, getting older, she decided it was time to downsize to an apartment nearby, and approached him about a sale this summer.

The seller declined to comment “at this time,” when reached at her home.

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• Dec 31, 1969
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Kutyan said she was not happy with the offer she got from the developer back around 2014, vowing not to sell even as her neighbours did one by one and construction started around her. The home is now surrounded by towers ranging in storeys from the mid-20s to 30 or more.

The typical “knee jerk” reaction when people see the house is, “they missed the boat, right?” Kutyan said. “It got orphaned.”

The home was being sold as is, not to mention it was in the shadows of the neighbouring towers. The area has seen rapid growth, sometimes against the objections of many in the surrounding community, with developers going to what was then known as the Ontario Municipal Board to build taller than what the city allowed, the Star reported in 2017.

Kutyan remembers being asked, “what is this thing, who’s going to buy it?”

As it turned out, a lot of people tried.

Kutyan hired land-use planning consultancy firm Goldberg Group to draft a memo, outlining all the things a buyer could do with the property.

“Because as a single-family residence, that ship has sailed. I don’t think that’s the best use for it anymore,” he said.

Zoned for residential, the firm noted that under the city’s new multiplex bylaw, everything from a semi to a fourplex and four-storey apartment building are allowed. The 32-by-90-foot lot comes with a garage that could be turned into a garden suite.

With the city’s approval, it could also become a larger apartment building or commercial space, according to the memo.

The listing for the 2,000- to 2,500-square-foot detached home went up after Labour Day, at $1.495 million, advertising “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to seize one of the last remaining pieces of land at Yonge and Eglinton.”

The “potential ace in the hole” was for another developer to purchase the land to fulfil their requirement for parkland dedication off-site, Kutyan said.

The property got a lot of interest, including from some people who wanted to live in the home, despite it being dwarfed by the condo in the backyard.

“Unfortunately, the people who wanted to live in the home could not compete,” Kutyan said.

At one point, there were also discussions with the city about possibly turning the land into a park, he added.

The city evaluated the property for purchase as parkland, said City of Toronto spokesperson Erin George, in an email, recognizing the “strong need for more parkland in midtown.”

But based on the criteria in the Parkland Strategy, the lot “does not currently meet the city’s needs for a park space.”

There were eight offers in the end, Kutyan said, including one from a developer who was interested in using it as parkland, a potential solution that would have brought much needed green space to an “urban jungle.”

But the story does not have such a tidy ending, nor was the home carried away by balloons like in the movie.

That offer was higher than what the owner originally accepted, Kutyan said, but was conditional on due diligence and approval from city parks.

So the owner decided to go with another, “firm unconditional offer with a sizable deposit,” for $2.65 million.

Kutyan “can’t disclose” who the buyer is, but said it’s an “individual person” and not a developer, who he does not think wants to live in the house.

They’ve mentioned maybe renovating. He’s not exactly sure what the plan is, though, and whether the last holdout home will live on.

“At the end of the day it’s their property, they can do whatever they want with it.”