Bloorline Lofts

History of Bloorline Lofts

The lot was empty in 1910, and by 1912 United Brass & Lead had a factory here, so it was built around 1911, with battlement-like parapets on the roofline. The brass and lead company advertised in Canadian Foundryman in 1918 and was gone by the early 1920s; a 1928 ad for the building still mentions its foundry room and a private railway siding.

A long line of tenants followed. The Fenny Candy Company was making cream, marshmallow and gum candies by 1924 and went bankrupt in 1926 or 1927. Sani Products, maker of sanitary equipment and onyx table tops, showed its wares at the CNE in 1925. In 1932 Swift Canadian leased the building to make Vigoro plant food, the Cooperage Company of Canada was at the back in 1933, and by 1940 Kraft-Phenix Cheese and an industrial-oil dealer, R.W. Horsey, were here. The mattress springs most people associate with the building came later.

Plazacorp converted it in 2003 and 2004 into 64 lofts of one to three levels, from about 370 to 1,100 square feet. It sits just north of the Enigma Lofts, in a part of the west end that was full of candy makers, from Robert Watson on Sorauren to Neilson near Dundas and Lansdowne.

Stories you'll hear

“It was a mattress factory.” Springs were made here at one point, but the building started as a brass and lead foundry.