Freed Developments

Freed is a Toronto developer of more than twenty-five years, based at 552 Wellington Street West in the King West district it did much to shape. It describes its work as experience-based development rather than only building.

Its portfolio spans modern condominium developments, food and beverage ventures, resort communities, commercial space and investment funds.

Considerably more than most developers, which is the defining fact about the company:

• Condominiums in downtown Toronto, concentrated in the west end
• Hotels and resorts, including Freed Hotel and Residences, plus resort communities in Ontario cottage country
• Food and beverage venues, operated rather than leased out
• Commercial space and investment funds, including golf and recreation

The company calls this vertically and horizontally integrated, aligning development with construction, marketing, sales and management under one strategy.

Because a developer that operates restaurants and hotels stays in a neighbourhood after the last unit closes. That is a different relationship with a district than a developer who sells out and moves on.

It also shapes the product. Buildings from a company with hospitality operations tend to be designed with amenity and ground-floor retail in mind, because the company knows how to run those spaces rather than just lease them.

The caution is that a broad business is a broad business. Ask specifically about the residential track record rather than letting the hotel and restaurant work stand in for it.

Primarily downtown Toronto, with a concentration in King West and the western downtown, plus resort communities in Ontario cottage country including the Muskoka region.

The urban and the resort sides are genuinely different products. If you are buying a Toronto condominium, the resort portfolio tells you about the company’s ambitions rather than about your building.

Separate the brand from the building. Freed markets strongly and has won advertising awards for it, so make sure you are assessing the floor plan, the specification and the deposit structure rather than the campaign.

Ask which residential buildings are complete and registered, and how long interim occupancy ran. Ask what is standard in the finishes rather than what appears in the presentation centre.

Then the usual: maintenance fee estimate and its basis, parking and locker, and the occupancy and registration timeline.

Long enough to have shaped it. Freed has been developing for over twenty-five years with a concentration in the downtown west, and King West went from an industrial and warehouse district to one of Toronto’s densest residential neighbourhoods across that same period.

A developer with that much built product in one district is easy to assess, which is an advantage for a buyer. Walk the neighbourhood, find their completed buildings, and look at how the ground floors work, how the lobbies have aged and what the buildings resell for.