Suite sizes are on the rise as families choose to stay downtown

Tracey Hanes – Toronto Star

After years of shrinking in size, condominium suites are getting larger and more families are opting to stay downtown and raise their children in condos, according to seven industry experts at the Star’s recent roundtable discussion.

Comment: They have no choice, they are being priced out of the freehold market. Or they just don’t want to live in Ajax or Brampton.

Jim Ritchie of Tridel said his company recently had success selling larger units at 101 Erskine, a project in the Yonge-Eglinton neighbourhood. Peter Freed said Art Shoppe Lofts + Condos by Freed Developments and CD Capital offers units that can be scaled up and down for families.

Ritchie noted the condo construction industry has become very good at making suites more efficient and an 850-square-unit can now offer as much as an older 1,200 to 1,500-square-foot unit would have.

But downtown living for families also requires improved city infrastructure.

Comment: All the new condos require improved infrastructure! From roads to bike lanes to transit to sewers and hydro. They city has take all of those development fees for 15+ years and done pretty much nothing. There will be a reckoning, mark my words.

“With the population moving to the core, the city has not looked at the school system,” said Riz Dhanji of Canderel. “We see a lot of families who want to live downtown and we need to accommodate that.”

Marco Filice of Liberty Development Corp. and Ritchie said developers can help provide creative solutions. Filice suggested classrooms could be included in mixed-use developments and grow or shrink as class sizes demand, unlike a bricks-and-mortar school. Ritchie pointed out that his company built a high school in conjunction with a condo project.

Comment: So drop a school in the bottom of a condo. How about a rec centre in the bottom of another? There is a library at Fort York, that is a good first step. But we need to build communities out of these condo, and that means adding in community building facilities. It also means putting public spaces into condos to make them part of the urban fabric, for everyone.

Anson Kwok of Pinnacle International said daycares have been added at some condos but school age children’s needs haven’t been addressed. “It’s a case of the chicken and the egg. Do you build a school first or wait for the kids to come?”

Chris Wein of Great Gulf, who is raising his family in a downtown condo, said homeowners used to think that once kids got through daycare they would move to a house in the suburb. But a shift is underway with more families choosing to not commute, and stay downtown in condos.

As a parent raising two small children in a condo, Jared Menkes, of Menkes Developments, says condo boards can also make life difficult for families, such as requiring carriages to be brought inside via loading docks instead of front doors. But he said change is coming as more condos tailor amenities to children, including kids’ activity rooms and some have already added video gaming rooms.

“Child-friendly amenities are not that expensive to establish or maintain,” noted Wein, who added that many amenities are provided by the neighbourhood. “You can have a multitude of activities in areas where density has come back, amazing pockets of cultural amenities.”

—————————————————————————————————–
Contact Laurin Jeffrey for more information – 416-388-1960

Laurin Jeffrey is a Toronto real estate agent with Century 21 Regal Realty.
He did not write these articles, he just reproduces them here for people who
are interested in Toronto real estate. He does not work for any builders.
—————————————————————————————————–