Yorkville is an exclusive, upscale midtown neighbourhood known as Canada’s pre-eminent shopping district. Specialty stores, fashion boutiques, jewelry and antique shops, as well as independent art galleries line the quaint avenues of Yorkville Village, while large national and international retailers set up flagship locations along Bloor Street West. Centrally located and picturesque Yorkville attracts tourists from near and far. Tour buses trundle down the narrow streets in the hope of catching a glimpse of Toronto’s local celebrities and well to do residents.

Named for the Town of York (Toronto’s previous moniker), Yorkville was the first village annexed by City of Toronto upon its establishment. Coming through many stages of development since then, Yorkville has grown from a Hippie village of beatnik coffee shops in the 1960’s to a shopping destination in the 1980’s and 1990’s, to its current state as an exclusive address for both luxury retailers and the city’s most elite and affluent residents.

Despite being a big part of midtown, Yorkville has always maintained its own identity and small village feel by relegating the large skyscraper buildings to the main thoroughfares of Bloor Street West, Bay Street and Avenue Road and maintaining low, one and two-storey buildings in the Village (which runs along Yorkville Avenue and Cumberland Avenue).

Yorkville Homes

Yorkville is very much a mixed community of residents and retailers. The shops and restaurants of Yorkville Village are housed in pretty Victorian homes (built between 1870 and 1895) along Yorkville Avenue, Hazelton Avenue, Cumberland Avenue and Scollard Street.

Some of these updated Victorian homes, many of which are protected by the Ontario Heritage Act, have been converted for residential living, and although many have seen interior transformations, the exteriors retain their ornamental brick patters, gingerbread details, cast-iron fences and expertly landscaped gardens.

On the outskirts of the village, a mix of luxury glass condo towers, commercial offices and five-star hotels line the main streets, with many of their designs being both cutting-edge and extremely luxurious.

Yorkville Real Estate Market

Yorkville’s mix of extremely high-end and high design new construction buildings, and restored historic Victorians result in an extremely high-valued housing market. Considering the neighbourhood also happens to be located in perhaps the most ideal central-midtown corridor, close to the city’s best shopping, dining, entertainment and transit, Yorkville’s homes rent and sell among the highest price ranges in the country.

Yorkville Schools

Jesse Ketchum Junior and Senior Public School
Grades JK – 8

Monsigneur Fraser College
Catholic alternative and secondary school

Blyth Academy
Private secondary school

The Rosedale Day School
Grades JK – 8

Living in Yorkville

Yorkville is a walker’s paradise and one of very few Toronto neighbourhoods to receive a perfect 100/100 Walkscore. One could meander for days, admiring the big brand windows along Bloor Street, combing over 100 upscale shops at Hazelton Lanes, coming and going from the popular PATH beneath the Manulife Centre, or picking up latte after latte along the collection of independent restaurants and cafes in the Yorkville Village.

Nearby Ramsden Park (at the north end of the neighbourhood) offers tennis courts, an ice rink, a playground and a wading pool. There is also plenty of arts and culture to be discovered at the charming Yorkville Branch Library, the sprawling Toronto Reference Library (Canada’s largest and most extensive reference library), the Gardiner Museum of ceramics, the ROM, or the McLaughlin Planetarium.

Neighbourhood institutions include; Canada’s oldest luxury department store, Holt Renfrew; staple upscale restaurant, Sassafraz; and Yorkville Village’s iconic giant rock face, extracted from the Canadian Shield and over 1 Billion years old.

Shops | Restaurants | Services | 100 Walk Score

Yorkville Area Transportation

Almost all homes in Yorkville are within walking distance of Bloor/Yonge subway station, connecting to both the Yonge-University-Spadina line and the Bloor-Danforth line.

5 minute drive to Don Valley Parkway
10 minute drive to downtown Toronto