It used to be that there was just one door through which both the rich and regular folk could enter the lobby of Toronto’s iconic Sutton Place Hotel.

Now there are two.

The one on the right takes potential condo buyers to the former lobby which was shut down last summer, dressed up with a boatload of marble and turned into the sparkling showroom for The Britt condo development planned for the landmark site.

The door to the left leads to elevators used by 23 long-time tenants who’ve rented apartments at the hotel for decades. They remain holed up in the old Bay and Wellesley St. tower, pondering whether to launch legal action against their new landlord, Lanterra Developments, in a last-ditch effort to hang onto their homes.

The veteran among them, 102-year-old Sydney Bacon — who’s lived on the 23rd floor for 40 years — will move to a retirement home by April 1, armed with a six-figure buyout from Lanterra.

Others, like Lorraine Lewis, 66, are holding out as long as they can, knowing they’re powerless to push back forever against all the condos rising outside their windows.

Later this week, Lanterra will announce plans for another condo tower in the Bay-Wellesley area after reaching a $65 million deal with the province for a sprawling 2.14-acre site, once slated for an opera house, adjacent to the former Sutton Place.

“It’s a tragedy what the city has allowed to happen here,” says Lewis, looking down at the empty lot where locals have been lobbying for a park.

“I try not to think too much about what’s happening. I just want to enjoy every single day here that I have left.”

Lanterra and City of Toronto officials have been negotiating for months now with the tenants who remain scattered over 18 empty floors although the hotel shut down last summer.

As required by law when reducing or renovating rental stock, Lanterra has offered the tenants financial compensation — thousands of dollars based on their years of tenancy — six months’ notice and temporary new homes in much smaller condo units it owns nearby.

Lanterra hopes to get city approval later this year to gut the 33-storey tower, add a bigger base and nine more storeys which would add 200 units to the current 400 hotel rooms.

It’s proposed building an eight-storey, 78-unit rental wing off The Britt and eventually move everyone back into what long-term tenant Robert Langevin calls “a barrack” of much smaller units and a fraction of the 161 apartments that once graced Sutton Place.

Lanterra’s offer, which includes discounted rents for existing tenants for 20 years, is “considerably above and beyond” what’s required under the provincial Residential Tenancies Act as well as the city’s Official Plan and rental housing protection bylaw aimed at protecting rental stock, says city planner Deanna Chorney.

Lanterra chairman Mark Mandelbaum says his company is working closely with the city to meet its legal obligations to tenants like Lewis who has been there 23 years. Lanterra only made “special arrangements” for Sydney Bacon because, at 102, he was in need of nursing care.

“The city has a very, very well-defined process. But a tenant’s tenure is not the same as ownership. They did not put down money to buy or have the responsibility of ownership so the rights of tenants are defined (by law),” said Mandelbaum.

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“I think they are very well aware of what their legitimate legal rights are.”

Langevin is concerned the tenants “could be sacrificed” as Lanterra seeks approvals for the Wellesley site where community associations and city councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam have been vocal in trying to get parkland.

The two projects will be treated separately, she stresses, adding that Lanterra has proven itself to be responsive to community concerns.

“I’d like to see more parkland and community amenities before we add more density to the neighbourhood,” says Wong-Tam. “But I think Lanterra is becoming more and more community minded and knows how important it is for area residents to have parks and daycare and other amenities.”