Commerce Valley — Markham's south-west triangle of offices and condos, boxed in by Highways 7, 404 and 407

Commerce Valley is a small triangle on the northern edge of Markham's south-west area, east of Yonge Street, hemmed in by Highway 7, Highway 404 and Highway 407. The eastern half is offices and hotels along Commerce Valley Drive; the western half is condo towers and low-rise housing around Leitchcroft.

The point people most often get wrong: this is not Downtown Markham. Downtown Markham, Markham Centre and Uptown Markham all fall inside TRREB's Unionville community, some distance east.

On the City's Official Plan structure map, the Unionville side is a Regional Centre. Commerce Valley / Leitchcroft is marked as a Regional Corridor and Key Development Area, with the Leslie Street and Highway 7 intersection shown as a Gateway Hub. Geographically it sits closer to Richmond Hill Centre on Yonge Street than to Markham's downtown.

On TRREB's map the boundaries are Highway 7 to the north, Highway 407 to the south and Highway 404 to the east, narrowing westward to Bayview Avenue, where Highway 7 and the 407 converge to a point. The whole community lies west of the 404. Section 9.6.1 of Markham's 2014 Official Plan describes the Commerce Valley / Leitchcroft district the same way.

• Neighbours: across Highway 7 to the north is Richmond Hill (TRREB's Doncrest and Beaver Creek Business Park); across the 404 to the east, Buttonville and Milliken Mills West; across the 407 to the south, Thornlea and Langstaff South; to the west, the Richmond Hill Centre and Langstaff area.
• Inside: Pavilia Towers at 12 and 38 Gandhi Lane, near Highway 7 and Chalmers; the office blocks on Commerce Valley Drive East and West; the hotels around Leslie and Highway 7; Eden Park II on South Park Road (325 South Park Rd building guide) and Thornhill Towers on Suncrest Boulevard (62 Suncrest Blvd building guide).
• Not inside: Downtown Markham, Markham Centre and Uptown Markham are all in TRREB's Unionville community; see the Unionville page for them. The shops on the north side of Highway 7, Times Square among them, are in Richmond Hill, and nothing south of the 407 belongs here either.

On the City's Official Plan structure map, only the central Leitchcroft band is Neighbourhood Area (residential). The land east of Leslie, the Commerce Valley Drive West offices west of Leslie, and the western tip near Bayview are all Employment Area. The homes, then, are concentrated in Leitchcroft, west of Leslie.

These boundaries follow TRREB's community map, cross-checked against the Official Plan text. For any particular address, go by the TRREB community tag on the listing.

From the 2021 Census, approximated by census tract 0402.12. The tract is bigger than the TRREB community: it reaches east across the 404 and south past the community line, and the extra land is mainly offices and industry. With no detached houses in the tract and almost all of its housing west of the 404, it serves as a fair proxy for Commerce Valley's residential side. It counts 3,040 occupied private dwellings:

• Apartments five storeys or taller: 2,290 (75%)
• Row houses: 670 (22%)
• Apartments under five storeys: 55; semi-detached 15; duplex units 5
• Detached houses: none

Tenure: about 85% of households (2,560 of 2,995) live in condominium-tenure homes. Bedrooms: 1,140 one-bedroom, 1,250 two-bedroom, 415 three-bedroom and 170 with four or more, plus 25 studios.

Age of stock (25% sample): 850 homes built 2001–05 (28%), 680 in 2006–10 (23%), 765 in 2011–15 (26%), 195 in 2016–21 (7%) and 425 in 1991–2000 (14%), with about 75 older than that. Most of it went up between the late 1990s and 2015.

Buildings with sourced facts: Eden Park II (325 South Park Rd, 2013, 13 storeys, 438 suites), Thornhill Towers (62 Suncrest Blvd, 2003, 11 storeys, 223 suites) and Pavilia Towers (12 and 38 Gandhi Lane). This page has not verified the names or builders of other buildings, so it does not list them.

A unit facing Highway 7, one beside the 404 or 407, and one on a quiet Leitchcroft side street are different propositions. There is no data here on how much those positions move price; judge each unit on its own.

On 2026-10-14, residential and office addresses in the community were run through the YRDSB and YCDSB school locators. The results:

YRDSB (public). All 21 addresses that returned a result, including Gandhi Lane, Suncrest Blvd, South Park Rd, Pond Dr, Orchid Rd, Times Ave, Galleria Pkwy, Leitchcroft Cres, Azalea Gateway, Saddlecreek Dr and Commerce Valley Dr W, map to:

• Regular elementary: Doncrest PS (JK–8, 124 Blackmore Ave, located in Richmond Hill)
• French Immersion elementary: Adrienne Clarkson PS (grades 1–8, 68 Queens College Dr, Richmond Hill)
• Regular and French Immersion secondary: Thornlea SS (8075 Bayview Ave), for both 2026–27 and 2027–28
• IB programme (by application): Alexander Mackenzie HS (300 Major Mackenzie Dr W, Richmond Hill) for 2026–27, and Langstaff SS (106 Garden Ave, Richmond Hill) for 2027–28

The exception: office-area addresses east of Leslie Street on Commerce Valley Drive East (numbers 1, 33, 100 and 300) return Bayview Fairways PS (255 Bayview Fairways Dr) for regular elementary; French Immersion, secondary and IB are the same as above.

YCDSB (Catholic). All seven points checked gave the same result: St. Rene Goupil-St. Luke (135 Green Lane, Thornhill) for regular elementary, St. Anthony (141 Kirk Dr) for French Immersion elementary, and St. Robert CHS (8101 Leslie St, south of the 407) for secondary.

In plain terms: by address, the assigned public and Catholic schools are all outside the community. The public elementary is in Richmond Hill and the secondary schools are south of the 407. Walking distances and bus eligibility have not been checked. Separately, section 9.6.9 of the Official Plan requires a public school site to be secured for the Leitchcroft district; whether or when a school will be built has not been verified here.

Catchments are set by house number. Before buying, check the exact address with YRDSB Find My School and the YCDSB school locator. Seven house numbers came back empty from the YRDSB tool; a blank result means trying another house number, not that the address is outside the catchment. Boundaries can also change.

The City of Markham does not publish population figures by TRREB community. The numbers below are from the 2021 Census, approximated by census tract 0402.12, which is larger than the TRREB community (see section 03).

• Population: 6,069 in 2021, up 2.2% from 5,937 in 2016.
• Households: 2.0 people per household on average; 1,150 of 3,035 households are one person (about 38%); 75 households have five or more people.
• Age: average 44.3, median 42.0; 21.6% are 65 or older and 10.0% are 14 or younger.
• Tenure: 2,105 owner households and 895 renter households (about 30%).
• Income: median household income of $68,500 in 2020 ($81,000 for households of two or more, $50,400 for one-person households).
• Mother tongue (single responses): Cantonese 2,150, English 1,255, Mandarin 1,000, Iranian Persian 320.

The figures describe small households, many people living alone, few children and roughly three in ten households renting.

TRREB's Q1 2026 Markham community report (All Home Types) shows Commerce Valley with 27 sales, a median of $628,800, an average of $685,911, SP/LP of 96% and 49 average days on market.

Three things to keep in mind:

• This median mostly reflects condo-apartment prices. In TRREB's community report charts, condo apartments make up most sales here, and the community has no detached houses. Don't use it as a guide to townhouse prices.
• Don't compare it with Unionville's or Buttonville's median to see how much cheaper it is. About a quarter of Unionville's sales are detached houses and Buttonville's are mostly detached, so the mixes differ, and a gap between all-types medians mostly reflects that mix, not what the same kind of home costs.
• A few dozen sales a quarter is a small sample. For a particular building or layout, look at recent sales in the same building and of the same type.

TRREB does not publish rents by community; its rental report stops at the municipal level. For Q1 2026, TRREB's Markham-wide average rents on leased apartments were $2,245 for a one-bedroom (333 leases) and $2,801 for a two-bedroom (227 leases). Those are figures for all of Markham, not Commerce Valley.

Local asking-rent snapshot. On 2026-10-14, Zolo showed 29 rental listings carrying TRREB's "Commerce Valley" community tag. Four were set aside (two that looked like single-room rentals, one land listing and one with no price shown), leaving 25 whole units; rooms and basement units are excluded. These are asking rents for whole units, listings live on 2026-10-14, not achieved rents:

• Condo one-bedroom and 1+1: $2,150–$2,500 a month, n=8, median $2,375
• Condo two-bedroom (including 2+1): $2,800–$3,250 a month, n=10, median $2,950; one two-bedroom penthouse asking $3,900 is an outlier and is left out of the range
• Low-rise units listed without a suite number (3–4 bedrooms): $3,350–$3,700 a month, n=5

One 3+1-bedroom condo is a single listing and is not shown separately. Seven of the 25 had already cut their price, and time on the market ran from 1 to 90 days, which suggests achieved rents may land in the lower half of these ranges. For context, the 2021 Census put renters' median monthly shelter cost at $1,940; that is a 2021 figure, not today's asking rent. The sample is small, so treat it as direction only. For an investment case, pull the last six months of leased Commerce Valley listings from TRREB and group them by bedroom count.

Driving is the strongest suit here. Highway 7 interchanges with the 404, the 404 / 407 system interchange sits at the community's south-east corner, and there are Highway 7 / 407 ramps at Bayview. In the 2021 Census (taken during the pandemic, 25% sample), 1,395 of 1,610 commuters travelled by car, truck or van (about 87%, drivers and passengers), 100 took transit (about 6%), 90 walked, and 160 had a one-way trip of more than 60 minutes.

Viva Purple runs in the Highway 7 rapidway between Richmond Hill Centre and Cornell, with stops along the community's northern edge including Bayview, Chalmers, Valleymede, West Beaver Creek, Leslie and East Beaver Creek. Check yrt.ca for current service.

Langstaff GO on the Richmond Hill line is about 1.4 km in a straight line from Bayview and Highway 7, and about 2.1 km from Pavilia. Metrolinx's Table 61 Richmond Hill timetable, effective April 25, 2026 and still the version linked from gotransit.com on October 14, 2026, shows:

• Trains run on weekdays only (holidays excepted), and only in the peak commuting direction.
• Southbound to Union: four trains, leaving Langstaff at 06:15, 07:16, 07:46 and 08:16, about 44 minutes to Union.
• Northbound to Langstaff: five trains, leaving Union at 15:45, 16:45, 17:15, 17:45 and 18:45 and arriving between 16:25 and 19:25.
• At all other times the service is GO bus route 61.

Richmond Hill Centre Terminal (8675 Yonge St) is about 1.6 km in a straight line from Bayview and Highway 7, and about 2.7 km from the Times Avenue / Galleria area.

Yonge North Subway Extension: Metrolinx describes about 8 km and five stations running north from Finch into Vaughan, Markham and Richmond Hill. The tunnelling contract was awarded in July 2025; Metrolinx says the line opens after the Ontario Line is complete and gives no date.

According to OpenStreetMap, the Highway 7 side of the community has hotels around Leslie and Highway 7 (a Courtyard, a Residence Inn and the Hilton Garden Inn at 300 Commerce Valley Dr E) and a number of restaurants, with another row of restaurants on Commerce Valley Drive West near Highway 7. Names come from OSM and may be out of date.

OSM shows no supermarket inside the community. OSM can be incomplete, and this page has not verified where residents actually buy groceries.

Directly across Highway 7 are Times Square and the shops around 330 Highway 7 East. They are on the far side of Highway 7, in Richmond Hill, not in this community.

OpenStreetMap shows Leitchcroft Park, Saddle Creek Park (with a splash pad) and Lotus Flower Park in the community; whether each falls inside the TRREB boundary is judged from coordinates. This page found no official City of Markham page for them. Valley View Park and others south of the 407 are on the Thornlea side.

OSM shows no community centre or library inside the community; that has not been cross-checked on markham.ca.

There is no official crime data for Commerce Valley as a community, and this page has not built its own spatial count, so it makes no claim either way about safety.

York Regional Police publishes a Crime Maps and Statistics page and a Community Safety Data Portal where you can look at incidents around a given area; YRP notes that some information may be delayed or withheld to protect privacy and investigations. For a read on a particular building, check the portal for that area and visit once in daylight and once after dark.

Section 9.6 of Markham's Official Plan designates Commerce Valley / Leitchcroft a mixed-use key development area, aimed at office, retail, entertainment and higher-density housing:

• Section 9.6.3 caps housing at 3,050 dwelling units on the Leitchcroft residential parcel shown in Figure 9.6.3 (York Region Modification 69), and that section is subject to Area/Site Specific Appeal No. 15. It is a limit on that parcel, not on Commerce Valley as a whole.
• Section 9.6.5 allows a block of employment land east of Bayview and south of Highway 7 to be redesignated through an Official Plan amendment. In weighing one, Council is to have regard, as applicable, to a list of matters such as no net reduction in jobs and the provision of lands for a VIVA terminal. These are considerations, not fixed conditions.

York Region's 2022 Official Plan (as adopted in July 2022), Appendix 2, sets minimum densities for station areas (PMTSAs): PMTSA 14, Leslie-Highway 7 BRT Station, 200 people and jobs per hectare; PMTSA 25, West Beaver Creek BRT Station, 250; and next door to the west, PMTSA 13, Langstaff GO-Bridge Station, 400. Later provincial changes may apply, so rely on the current version.

The Le Parc site (8432 and 8500 Leslie St and 220 Commerce Valley Dr W, south of Highway 7): UrbanToronto reported on January 8, 2026 that a Metrus Properties company has applied to redevelop it with four residential towers; the site now holds two office buildings and a closed banquet hall. As of that report it was a proposal under application. This page has not verified whether it has since been approved, how far it has progressed, the application type or the City file number.

How to read it: the plans point to more density in the eastern office area and along Highway 7, but heights, unit counts and timing are not settled. Treat it as a long-run variable, not a near-term plus or minus.

Almost everything in Commerce Valley is condominium tenure, so the homework is done building by building and unit by unit:

1. Status certificate. Anyone can request one from the condo corporation, which must provide it within 10 days of receiving the request and payment, for no more than $100 including tax. It can cover the budget, audited statements, a reserve fund study summary, arrears on the unit, special assessments and litigation. Get it before you firm up and read every line.
2. Questions for each building: what the fees include (water, heat, hydro); the state of the reserve fund; whether parking and the locker are owned or exclusive-use; pet and leasing rules; and whether the corporation shares the building with a commercial component.
3. Check schools by house number. The regular public elementary is in Richmond Hill (Doncrest PS), and addresses east of Leslie return a different school. Use YRDSB Find My School and the YCDSB locator for the exact address, and check French Immersion and IB separately.
4. Run your commute against the timetable. If GO matters, Langstaff has trains only southbound on weekday mornings and northbound on weekday evenings; at other times it is a bus.
5. Orientation and noise. For units facing Highway 7, the 404 or the 407, go and listen. Keep an eye on nearby sites, such as the Le Parc application, that could bring construction or block a view later.
6. Short-term rentals. If that is part of the plan, check the City of Markham's current rules directly rather than relying on third-party summaries.

Be specific about what Commerce Valley offers: how many minutes on foot to a Viva stop on Highway 7, how close the 404 and 407 ramps are, the layout and bedroom count, and the age of the building. Price condos against condos and townhouses against townhouses; don't set a townhouse price from the community's all-types median.

TRREB's Q1 2026 figures for Commerce Valley, SP/LP of 96% and 49 average days on market, describe all property types together. For your unit, look at recent sales in the same building and of the same layout.

The rental stock here is substantial: the 2021 Census counts 895 renter households, about 30% of the total.

• No cash-flow verdict here. There is no community-level data on achieved rents, and the snapshot in section 07 covers 25 listings, seven of them already reduced. Underwrite each unit on conservative achieved rent, condo fees, today's interest rate, property tax and insurance. Do not assume positive cash flow.
• Rent evidence: use the last six months of leased Commerce Valley listings from TRREB, grouped by bedroom count, not asking rents.
• Plans and applications: the approval status of proposals such as Le Parc has not been verified here, and the station-area intensification has no timetable. Do not build either into your return as a near-term catalyst.

This page makes no price forecast and is not investment advice.

Commerce Valley is a small triangle enclosed by Highways 7, 404 and 407: half office park, half condo towers and low-rise homes, about 6,000 people on the census approximation. It is not Downtown Markham.

• Buyers: quick highway access and homes mostly built between 2001 and 2015. Schools and groceries are outside the community, so check the catchment by house number first, then do the homework building by building.
• Commuters: about 87% commuted by car, truck or van in the 2021 Census. For transit, the everyday options are the Highway 7 Viva and Richmond Hill Centre; Langstaff GO has trains only in the peak direction on weekdays.
• Sellers: be specific about the walk to Viva, the highway access and the layout, and compare by type and by building.
• Investors: about three in ten households rent and rent data is thin, so keep the numbers conservative. Intensification around Leslie and Highway 7 depends on applications and approvals that are still open.