I created this account specifically to share my experience with this building, where I rented from fall 2023 to fall 2024. In hindsight, renting a pre-construction was a mistake that came with several consequences I won’t go into, but instead focus my criticisms here on issues that seem unlikely to improve, even once construction is finished. While most of these are personal experiences, many are echoed by others in the residents’ Facebook group.
- Poor workmanship:
- Uneven caulking, with hardened beads of caulk in random places in the shower.
- Chipped paint on window frames; the PDI response to this was to spray-paint over the bare spots, but the results still looked unprofessional.
- Several electrical socket covers and the thermostat were painted over (no, this wasn’t my landlord).
- Bulkheads are not square, I could see one from my bed that is egregiously off from a right angle
- Numerous reports of kitchen sinks detaching and collapsing.
- Design Flaws:
- The front closet door opened directly into the tension mechanism of the main door and therefore could never fully open.
- HVAC issues across multiple units, with undersized fan-coil units unable to adequately regulate air flow. In my unit, the bedroom basically did not receive air at all, and no amount of balancing could fix it. Concerns had also been raised in the building about corridor temperature regulation and overall chiller capacity.
- The parking garage is mostly above-ground in the middle of the building, so one can walk directly into the garage on the 7th floor, for example. The CO alarms at garage entryways are extremely loud and cannot be silenced, so most residents on those floors can hear it clearly from within their units—sometimes for hours, such as during garage cleaning (gasoline power washers).
- With however many units across four towers, the fire alarm system is shared, meaning frequent alarms are likely
- The elevator rooms on the main floor have a single door, forcing incoming and outgoing passengers to wait awkwardly for each other, leading to missed elevators.
- Soundproofing between units and corridors is minimal. Noise travels easily through the long, straight hallways (which are the length of the full block, Front->Esplanade), making even distant sounds clearly audible.
- Each tower has a different coloured carpet motif in front of the elevators. You can imagine the issues with a yellow carpet in the most trafficked part of the building
- The entry doors are very narrow and the flow doesn’t make any sense. The entry fobs were never operational when I lived there but there would be no good way to hold the fob in one hand and open the door with the other, given the direction of the door opening and the location of the fob reader
- The gym does not have any free weights, I suspect because it is on the 11th floor and there would be noise concerns (dropping weights)
- Staff:
- FirstService Residential (previously Crossbridge) management was approachable in person, but overall lacked proactivity. This may change once the building is complete and they have more control, but during my time, basic tasks were often neglected:
- The CybersuiteX platform they use didn’t seem to function at all. Residents have suggested management revert to email for communication, but this hasn’t happened. Infuriatingly, all mass communications from management come through the app (if it was working that day), yet messages to management must be sent via email and they do not monitor their in-app inbox.
- They are a large team and share a common email inbox. They can't seem to identify building-wide patterns, as any 4 complaints may be received and responded to by any 4 different staff members working out of 4 separate physical offices.
- Security was inconsistent, often bypassing protocols. For example, the enterphone system wasn’t operational, and security required residents to call them directly to announce guests, which could easily allow unauthorized visitors.
In short, I wouldn’t recommend living in this building. Of course, it wasn’t all bad, and this is only my experience. The Pemberton customer care staff are endlessly patient but they’re fighting an uphill battle for a company that seems not to care. While property value will surely rise with the new Ontario Line station, the living conditions are far from ideal. I couldn’t see any light at the end of the tunnel, so I moved.
