The Building Behind Innova Dental

Innova Dental opens in March 2027 at 16 Wellesley Street West in downtown Toronto — inside a building that has stood on that street since 1876.

Thomas Bryce Row, 10–16 Wellesley Street West, downtown Toronto — the heritage-designated Second Empire facade that will house Innova Dental. Built 1876, designated under the Ontario Heritage Act in 2020, plaqued by Heritage Toronto in 2024.

Most dental practices occupy generic commercial space. A unit in a medical building, a ground-floor retail conversion, an office suite in a condominium tower. The building is incidental — a container for the work that happens inside.

At 16 Wellesley Street West, the building has a history of its own.

Thomas Bryce Row

The address — 10 to 16 Wellesley Street West — is a terrace of four Second Empire row houses, designed and built in 1876 by the firm Thomas Bryce and Brothers. The firm was run by three siblings: John, Alexander, and Thomas Bryce, a lumber merchant responsible for many Toronto homes of the era. The row — four compact townhouses with mansard roofs, decorative dormer windows, and ornate brick arches — is a characteristic example of the compact, well-crafted residential architecture of the period.

For nearly a century, the row was home to families. By the 1960s the properties had begun moving to commercial use: a rooming house at 12 Wellesley Street West, the Wellesley Gift Shop at number 14 by 1966, an antiques store behind it by 1969. By 1975, all four units were operating as shops. The neighbourhood around them changed dramatically — glass towers replaced the Victorian streetscape in almost every direction. The row survived.

In 2020, the buildings were designated under the Ontario Heritage Act. In 2024, Heritage Toronto recognised the designation with a formal plaque, now fixed to the exterior brick at the entrance.

What Was Preserved

The new construction at 16 Wellesley Street West preserved the exterior facade in its entirety. The Second Empire roofline, the arched windows, the decorative brickwork, the proportions of the original Victorian terrace — all of it remains. What sits behind the facade is entirely new: a modern building shell with the structural, mechanical, and electrical infrastructure a contemporary surgical dental practice requires.

The result is a building that belongs to two periods at once. From the street, it reads as it has since 1876 — a low-rise Victorian row on a block otherwise given over to glass and concrete. From the inside, it is new construction, built to current standards.

The Heritage Toronto plaque at 10–16 Wellesley Street West, recording the 2020 designation under the Ontario Heritage Act.

Why the Name

Innova Dental was named deliberately. The practice is built around clinical innovation — digital impressions, cone beam CT imaging, full-arch implant rehabilitation, IV sedation — and around bringing that capability into a general dentistry setting, so that more care can be provided in one place where that is clinically appropriate.

The building reinforces rather than contradicts this. Innovation does not require erasing what came before. A dental practice can be technically advanced, genuinely patient-centred, and rooted in its neighbourhood — and it can be all three inside a building with 150 years of history behind its facade.

That is what Innova Dental is being built to be.

The Practice

Innova Dental is led by Dr. Onur Cavus. The clinic opens in March 2027 at 16 Wellesley Street West, at Yonge and Wellesley in downtown Toronto — steps from Wellesley Station on Line 1 — and is currently accepting expressions of interest from future patients.

If you would like to register your interest, visit our contact page.

Innova Dental — 16 Wellesley Street West, Toronto, Ontario. Opening March 2027.