Concord

Concord is the part of Vaughan that is changing fastest: the city’s new downtown at the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre, a large employment area along Highways 400 and 407, and a few quiet residential pockets. Living here mostly means a condo on the subway at VMC, or an older home in a long-established neighbourhood like Glen Shields.

Concord roughly covers the area from Steeles Avenue north to Rutherford Road, between Highway 400 and Dufferin Street. Much of the land is industrial, anchored by CN’s MacMillan Yard, and there are offices, logistics and retail along Highway 7, Jane Street and Keele Street. That job base is one reason the area has so much new housing.

Communities in Concord

Vaughan Metropolitan Centre

The Vaughan Metropolitan Centre is the city’s planned downtown at Highway 7 and Jane Street, just north-east of the Highway 400 and 407 interchange. It was first planned in the late 1990s as the Vaughan Corporate Centre, and real estate boards still list it under that name. Since the Line 1 subway opened here in December 2017, office towers, a bus terminal, parks and many condo towers have followed, with more under construction. It sits on the site of the historic farming community of Edgeley.

Day to day, VMC is the most urban part of the city. The David Braley Vaughan Metropolitan Centre of Community, next to the subway, houses a YMCA, a Vaughan Public Library branch and City programming space, and employers such as KPMG and PwC have offices in the towers around the station. Most residents here walk to transit and use a car far less than elsewhere in Vaughan.

Glen Shields

Glen Shields is a residential area in the south-east of Concord, just west of Dufferin Street, built in the 1970s and 1980s. It is mostly low-rise housing on established streets with mature trees, right next to Thornhill’s western edge. The real estate board tracks Glen Shields as its own community.

Concord’s residential pockets

Away from VMC, Concord’s housing is in smaller residential pockets set between employment lands, with older homes alongside newer infill. Around Highway 7 and the Barrie rail line, the City has adopted the Concord GO Centre Secondary Plan to guide future mixed-use growth if a new GO station goes ahead.

Getting around Concord

• Subway: Vaughan Metropolitan Centre station, at Highway 7 and Millway Avenue, is the northern terminus of Line 1, with direct trains to Union Station. Highway 407 station, on Jane Street, has a GO and YRT bus terminal.
• Viva and YRT: Viva Orange runs on the Highway 7 rapidway and stops right at the subway. The SmartVMC Bus Terminal serves YRT routes and Brampton Transit Züm.
• Highways: Highways 400 and 407 meet here, and Highway 7 runs through the middle.
• Future GO station: in 2023 Metrolinx published an initial business case for a Highway 7/Concord GO station on the Barrie line. It is still in planning, with no construction date.

For a weekday commute, the subway is the anchor: a one-seat ride from VMC to Union, with the 400 and 407 for anyone who drives to work in the suburbs.

Buying, selling or renting in Concord

Most Concord buyers are choosing a condo at VMC, and the main questions are building quality, maintenance fees, the developer’s track record and how close the unit is to the subway entrance. Buying pre-construction and buying a finished resale unit carry different risks, which we explain in our comparison of pre-construction and resale condos in Vaughan. Freehold homes in Glen Shields and the other pockets come up less often, and well-kept homes there tend to draw steady interest.

Renters at VMC are often people who work along the subway line or in the offices nearby, so units close to the station entrance with practical layouts are usually the easiest to lease. Investors should read the building’s rental rules and the status certificate before committing.

Whether you are buying your first condo, renting one out or selling a home in one of the older neighbourhoods, you can work with a Vaughan real estate team that follows these buildings closely.