Construction is underway for Rose Towers, a new 1,290-unit purpose-built rental community at 241 Queen St. E. in Brampton, Ont. being developed by Skyline Group of Companies and Solmar Development Corp.

Solmar acquired the site, which was formerly home to an automotive dealership, about five years ago. It was originally contemplated as a condominium development before it was decided to go the rental route and Skyline came on as a partner.

“The city and the Region of Peel decided to, for a limited time, reduce development charges for rentals,” Greg Jones, the president of Skyline’s development arm, SkyDev, told RENX. “That gave us what we needed to invest and give attainable rents to people.”

“The rental market is such a strong and good option for a lot of people,” Solmar chief executive officer Blake Lyon said in the same interview. “A lot of new Canadians come in and it's a great place for them to get into a rental product first before they become home buyers.”

What Rose Towers will offer 

Rose Towers will consist of four buildings ranging from 26 to 30 storeys. Between 30 and 40 per cent of the units will have two bedrooms, with the remainder having one bedroom plus a den. The average unit size will be about 700 square feet.

Indoor and outdoor amenity spaces will include: fitness centres; lounges and party rooms; barbecue areas; pet wash stations; a pickleball court; and three levels of underground parking.

Each building will also feature a small amount of ground-floor commercial space, with a combined total of about 15,000 square feet, that’s potentially suitable for a daycare centre, a small-format grocery store, a coffee shop or other uses. 

Skyline Living will be the property manager.

It’s expected to take from 30 to 34 months to build each tower. Construction is being launched simultaneously for all of them, but with phased occupancy, and Jones expects the entire development to be completed in four years.

“We're getting aggressive pricing from everybody and that's helping make the numbers work,” said Lyon. “It's good timing to bring four towers to the market like this.”

Rose Towers is within Brampton’s Queen Street Corridor, which has been identified as one of Ontario’s Urban Growth Centres, and is less than two kilometres from Highway 410. It offers convenient access to public transit, retail, a hospital, a college, dining and recreational activities.

“All of SkyDev’s developments are done in limited partnerships and, once we lease the buildings and stabilize them, Skyline Apartment REIT has an independent board of trustees and may be interested in it when it's completed,” said Jones. “But we may have other interest as well.”

Skyline and its other developments

Guelph, Ont.-based Skyline has approximately 1,000 employees across Canada. It managed more than $10 billion in assets across its real estate and renewable infrastructure platforms on March 31.

The company is expanding its rental developments across Ontario, with more than 600 units completed, 1,350 under construction, and more than 3,000 in the development pipeline across five additional communities.

Construction is continuing on the first phase of Sky Towers, a master-planned development that will ultimately bring 928 rental units to Barrie, Ont. SkyTowers’ first phase at 22 and 26 Grove St. W. is comprised of 25- and 27-storey buildings providing a combined 541 units, including 32 affordable units. 

A third tower has been approved but construction hasn’t yet begun for that.

Here are Skyline’s other current or recently completed purpose-built rental multifamily developments in Ontario:

• the 267-unit East Bayshore Road complex at 3195 E. Bayshore Rd. in Owen Sound;
• Spencer Place, a 199-unit building at 157 Queensway E. in Simcoe;
• Terra Apartments, a two-building, 164-unit complex that backs on to conservation lands and Potter’s Creek on Sienna Avenue in Belleville;
• Silvercreek Apartments, a three-building, four-storey complex with 187 units on Prince of Wales Drive in Collingwood;
• Lyndale Apartments, a six-storey building featuring 166 units in Lindsay that are under construction;
• and the Aspen Shores project in Meaford that Jones would like to start this year, but for which ground hasn’t been broken yet.

Other Solmar activity

Concord, Ont.-based Solmar is a family-owned company that’s been developing master-planned communities, single-family homes, condo towers, business parks and commercial developments across the Greater Toronto Area for more than 36 years.

Construction is up to the 20th floor at Oro at Edge Towers, a 50-storey, 614-unit building that’s the third of three buildings that form the Edge Towers master-planned community on Elm Drive West in Mississauga. 

Units range in size from 565 to 804 square feet and prices started in the upper $700,000s. Lyon said most have been sold and delivery is expected in mid-2027.

Solmar has just launched sales for the third and final 149-home phase of Erin Glen, a community of about 1,400 freehold townhouses, semi-detached and single-family homes in Erin, Ont.

The company will launch sales in a few weeks for another master-planned lowrise community called Wildfield Village that’s comprised of 2,500 homes at the intersection of Gore and Mayfield roads in Caledon, Ont. 

Solmar has also established Two Sisters Vineyards and the new Stone Eagle Winery in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont. Niagara-on-the-Lake's 11th Post on Queen restaurant and the forthcoming St. Regis hotel, which is scheduled to open at the end of next summer in the same town, are further marking Solmar's entry into hospitality.