Merchandise Lofts

History of Merchandise Lofts

Simpson's, the Queen and Yonge department store, needed somewhere to fill catalogue orders for customers across the country. The first warehouse went up on this block in 1910, and in 1916 a reinforced-concrete Mail Order Building was added on Mutual Street, advertised at the time as fireproof. More additions between 1931 and 1949 tripled its size, all following the original design. The architect was Max Dunning of Burke, Horwood and White, the firm behind the Simpson's flagship at Queen and Yonge. The Dalhousie Street front was a plainer 1949 addition, refaced to match the rest during the conversion.

For most of the century, orders from across Canada were packed and shipped from here, first for Simpson's, then Simpsons-Sears and Sears Canada, which owned the building until 1992. At over a million square feet it is still one of the biggest buildings by floor area downtown. The City designated it under the Ontario Heritage Act on May 12, 1997, as the Robert Simpson Co. Ltd. Warehouse.

After a plan to turn it into public housing fell through, the City sold the building to Cresford Developments, which converted it in phases from the late 1990s, the first phase completed around 2000. The work was held up by a construction strike and by a three-alarm fire, started when a worker flicked a cigarette butt down an old freight elevator shaft onto a pile of debris. Today it is four condo corporations (MTCC 1247, 1314, 1369 and 1565) across two addresses, 155 and 135 Dalhousie, with about 500 lofts from roughly 565 to 1,765 square feet, 12-foot ceilings, polished concrete and mushroom columns. You take one elevator to the fourth floor and another to your loft.

Stories you'll hear

“The same architect designed the Tip Top building.” The two look like cousins, but Max Dunning's firm did not design Tip Top; Bishop and Miller did.