The Wave at Sayward

About The Wave at Sayward Hill

The Wave is a 58-home steel-and-concrete strata on Sayward Hill Crescent in Cordova Bay, built by Jawl Developments and completed in 2005. It sits on a hillside directly above the Cordova Bay and Ridge golf courses, with the Salish Sea beyond.

The strata is not a single tower, and the address you see on a listing tells you which part of it you are buying into. Thirty-eight homes sit in the main building at 5332 Sayward Hill Crescent. Five more are at 5316. The remaining fifteen each carry their own civic address along the crescent, running from 5318 through 5348. One strata, one set of bylaws, three quite different living experiences.

What unites them is scale. Homes here start around 1,450 square feet and run past 3,300 in the sub-penthouses, with two-bedroom-plus-media-room and three-bedroom layouts as the standard product. There is nothing at The Wave that could be described as an entry-level condo. It was built for people leaving a house and refusing to give up the square footage, and twenty years on that is still who lives here.

Architecture & Design

The main building at 5332 is a long, curved six-storey form that follows the contour of the hillside rather than fighting it — close enough to a letter S that agents have used the description for two decades. Cladding is stone and stucco over a poured concrete foundation and steel-and-concrete structure. Original interiors were designed by Kimberly Williams.

The most sought-after homes in that building are the terraced end units that cascade down its east end. There are only six of them, they carry outdoor terraces of 570 to 675 square feet, and they come up rarely.

The five homes at 5316 are a distinct proposition — a smaller building, ground-floor homes with keyed street entry and large private patios, and the closest thing in the strata to a townhouse. The fifteen individually addressed homes along the crescent are separate again.

Orientation drives everything else here. East, south and southeast homes take in the golf courses, Haro Strait, Mt. Baker, and the Gulf and San Juan Islands. North-facing homes trade the ocean for valley and mountain views. Balconies on the main buildings run the length of the home — sixty feet is not unusual.

Suite Features & Finishes

Ceilings are nine feet through most of the complex, with vaulted ceilings in some top-floor homes and slightly lower heights in a few. Floor-to-ceiling windows are standard, as are gas fireplaces, wide-plank maple or engineered hardwood floors, granite or marble counters, gourmet kitchens with large islands and gas cooking, and five-piece ensuites with soaker tubs and separate showers.

Layouts favour separation: a primary suite at one end, a guest wing at the other, and a media room or den in between. Laundry is a proper room rather than a closet. Many homes have in-floor radiant or heated tile flooring in the bathrooms, and heat-recovery ventilation appears in some.

On cooling. The complex was not built with central air throughout — a handful of homes have it, most do not. The relevant fact for buyers is that the strata permits owners to install ductless heat pumps and air-conditioning units.

Building Amenities

The amenity package is deliberately restrained. What the complex offers instead is grounds, views and parking.

• Secure underground parking — one or two stalls, with some homes holding three or four; guest parking provided
• EV charging — both common-use and dedicated installed stalls appear in the complex
• Storage lockers — separate storage with most homes
• Bicycle storage
• Kayak storage
• Common room and secured entry
• Elevators
• Private drive, irrigated and landscaped grounds

Accessibility is a genuine strength: homes across the complex are recorded as wheelchair friendly with accessible or no-step entry, single-level layouts and the primary bedroom on the main floor. For a hillside building, that is not an accident.

Pets, rentals and bylaws

Pets. The bylaw is consistently recorded as one dog or one cat — not one of each. Aquarium fish are permitted in reasonable numbers, and birds and caged mammals appear on the permitted list. Notably, listings specifically record no weight or size restriction on the dog. So: a single large dog is fine here; a dog and a cat is not.

Rentals. Permitted, but with a minimum tenancy term — and the recorded minimum has varied over the years between 90 days, six months and one year.

Barbecues. Permitted under the current bylaw, with gas outlets provided on the patios of some homes.

Age. No age restriction, though the surrounding neighbourhood is recorded as adult-oriented and the resident profile reflects that.

The strata is professionally managed by Firm Management. Confirm all bylaws with the strata before writing an offer — these change, and the MLS field is not the bylaw.

The Cordova Bay neighbourhood

Cordova Bay is a quiet, established, largely single-family neighbourhood on Saanich's eastern shore, and The Wave is one of very few condo options in it.

Mattick's Farm is the local centre — a small cluster of shops, a bakery, a bistro and a garden centre, a short walk from the building. Cordova Bay Beach and the Beach House restaurant are down the hill. The Cordova Bay and Ridge golf courses are literally the view. Elk and Beaver Lake Regional Park, with rowing, swimming and trails, is a few minutes north.

This is a low-density, low-noise setting. What it is not is walkable in the downtown sense — most errands beyond Mattick's involve a car.

Connectivity & Transportation

The Lochside Regional Trail runs close by, connecting south into Victoria and north to Sidney and the Swartz Bay ferry terminal — a flat, largely traffic-free route for cyclists.

By car, the Pat Bay Highway is a few minutes away via the Cordova Bay exit. Downtown Victoria is roughly 20 minutes; Victoria International Airport and the Swartz Bay ferry terminal are both about 20 to 25 minutes north. BC Transit serves Cordova Bay Road, but service is suburban in frequency.

Who this building suits — and who it doesn't

It suits downsizers coming out of a large house who want house-scale rooms, a real terrace and a golf-and-ocean outlook; buyers who need genuine single-level accessible living; and anyone who wants a quiet address with a car and no interest in walking to a restaurant at nine at night.

It doesn't suit anyone who wants to walk to shops and services, anyone under the impression that a condo means low-maintenance urban living — this is suburban and it is car-dependent — or anyone with both a dog and a cat, because the bylaw does not allow it. If downtown energy is what you're after, this is the wrong building and we'll say so before you drive out to see it.

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