Down at "Victory", near King and Spadina, they offered an option of two units side-by-side which could be bought separately or together. The larger unit is either 765 sq. ft. (2 BR) or 930 sq. ft. ( 2BR + study). The smaller unit, located next door, is either 350 or 360 sq. ft. If you want small, I give you small!

The small units have essentially one room (living / dining / kitchen / sleeping), one closet, and a washroom with shower (no tub).

I don't know how the sales are going, or how many of the small units have been sold either as a combo with the large unit, or on their own.

Agreed with dt's comment, that experienced developers don't just sell these units without having done extensive homework first. I do think that many of these smaller units at Aura will be purchased by parents of Ryerson students, especially given that Ryerson has so little residence space. Compared to other student housing, this won't be so bad.

Whether it's a smart strategy to mix what may be "student housing" with some of the city's more prestigious units, in the same building, I'm not so sure.
 
My wife, 18 y/o son and I bought two units in the Pinnacle Success Tower Units, 2504 and 2505. Pinnacle was willing to make an archway between the two units. One is a one bedroom unit and the other is a two bedroom unit. We will treat the units as one until my son, decides take over the one bedroom as a separate unit. We will have a double set of french doors installed so we can, in the future, 'lock off' one unit from the other, not unlike adjoining rooms in a hotel. Pinnacle was very co-operative in allowing us this plan, we gave up the kitchen in the one bedroom to facilitate the change. They have agreed to leave the water, drain, 220volt and 110volts 'rough in' in the bulkhead, so we can access it later.

It's a good plan for us.
 
299 bloor call control. said:
Or perhaps people will start buying multiple units adjacent to each other when prices and availability get to that point and just demo the walls separating them...

Though, is that even possible in buildings here? I know it's a very common practice right now in Hong Kong.
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299, yes, you can do that here. Just buy pre-construction, and tell the sales office (or your agent representing you) and get the builder to change the structure (you may have a concrete pole though for key structural points for the actual building).
 
Big Daddy said:
Not all but most. They range from 500 to a staggering 931 square feet. Heres another one at 504 feet. You have to admire a designer that has the audacity to call a 9 foot by 9 foot a room a "master bedroom". I hope you dont have a dresser because you wont get it in here.

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I can’t even see how you might have guests over. In fact, where would you even put a table? Notice how they cleverly didn’t show furniture in this one - because furniture doesn’t work in this one.
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I look at floorplans all the time, and I actually think it's a good use of space (for 504 sq ft). Compare it with other 500ish sq ft condos... this one has a window in the bedroom, good use of kitchen space to maximize the "living area", and no wasted spaces in hallways.

I guess they could have switched around the coat closet and the laundry...
 
Big Daddy said:
Maybe the city should have larger minimum sizes so future slums cant take seed.
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You can’t mandate apartment size directly. You can encourage it by messing about with densities, but that stuff can inevitably be negotiated. And the type of people moving into these buildings aren’t families. They’re young/upwardly mobile/yuppies. Even with the few 3 bedroom condos that are out there for nearly a million, you’re better off buying a mansion out in the 905 and getting a flash car for your commute, or getting actual property on the ground in the inner suburbs and renovating it.

There are no middle class families moving into the downtown, nor is there family formation occurring in the old city.

Eventually the residents of these 500sqft condos will move to the suburbs to start families, or the very few family-sized apartments downtown within reasonable distance of schools.

It's already started now – families are being marignalised in the old Toronto suburbs; and the middle class ones have to move out further and further into the 905 while their jobs usually stay downtown or in another suburb on the other side of the city which takes them hours to get to by a commute.

The market in the tiny suites should remain if the global city thesis still holds and Toronto doesn’t screw up. That second part might be unlikely given the lack of money in the public purse for hard and soft infrastructure. If that’s the case, the city will go the way of any ‘regenerated’ city in the US/England. Hyper wealthy downtown, poor people stuck around them, and the middle classes on the periphery.
 
nor is there family formation occurring in the old city.
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Really? Say that to my 18 month old and all her friends at the Distillery Day Care. Granted my condo is larger than 500 square feet.
 
I agree that the city need to address this somehow. I would love to raise my family in a nice apartment downtown, there just arent that many affordable places (for my understanding).
 
Disparishun said:
I am reminded of the famous anecdote about evidence...
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There is some family formation

But not much – it’s what goes with having uber wealthy families in the downtown. More education, more career, less kids later in life. Its showing up in the schools.

Check the excel file I attached. It shows the loss of elementary and secondary kids across Toronto. It’s mostly being caused by downtown/etobicoke/Kingston road areas (i.e. old and wealthy/gentrifying). Not so much in the north/east (scarborough/affordable).
 

Attachments

  • P20071218-System Overview 2001 to 2012.zip
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grey said:
If that’s the case, the city will go the way of any ‘regenerated’ city in the US/England. Hyper wealthy downtown, poor people stuck around them, and the middle classes on the periphery.
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'Hyper wealth' is a largely illusory phenomenon in the contemporary inner city, and Toronto is no exception to this. From cold hard statistics, it may appear as if the centre city escalated in wealth, but that's more to do with the fact that couples or singles who don't need to support any children are living in downtown condos. Many of them are comfortable, but by no means rich. A lot of them are first time homebuyers that could never dream of affording anything with a yard, even in the 905. They're junior marketing analysts, registered nurses, managers of Starbucks', mortgage specialists at banks...young people in their late 20s and early 30s who may make $40 to $50,000 but don't have kids to support. They're not upper class elites by any measure.

The same support of steroetype can also not be drawn in the outer-416 and the 905. Parts of Downsview (near Jane and Finch) have well-appointed single family houses that sit in the shadow of troubled high rises. There has also been an explosion in the number of people spending the night in shelters in the 905.
 
there are lot of really poor people, especially low skilled immigrants in the 905.

It is just that no one thinks they are. The 905 is not seen as rich, it is seen as middle class.

Outer Toronto is seen as poor (Rexdale, Jane/Finch, Scarborough)





Inner Toronto and Midtown are seen as not even close to affordable.
 
Hipster Duck said:
'Hyper wealth' is a largely illusory phenomenon in the contemporary inner city, and Toronto is no exception to this. From cold hard statistics, it may appear as if the centre city escalated in wealth, but that's more to do with the fact that couples or singles who don't need to support any children are living in downtown condos. Many of them are comfortable, but by no means rich. A lot of them are first time homebuyers that could never dream of affording anything with a yard, even in the 905. They're junior marketing analysts, registered nurses, managers of Starbucks', mortgage specialists at banks...young people in their late 20s and early 30s who may make $40 to $50,000 but don't have kids to support. They're not upper class elites by any measure.
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What you’re already seeing is the start of weakening of the middle income brackets in the city. It’s not an statistical illusion created by a drop in the number of families in the downtown. A drop in family formation really only affects disposable income, not reported income. There’s been a clear trend to a divergence of income in the city since the 1970s and its only picked up pace in the last little while.

Its also starting to look like a general loss of the middle class, and not just middle class flight to the suburbs because the same trends in reported income are beginning to happen greater golden horseshoe wide – and nationally.

edit:
I’m not saying it is a problem necessarily – just a definite shift with a lot if potential impacts that we need to decide how to deal with, if at all. I know where I fall on things, just a question of what it means for public policy/politicking/how many people get left out in the cold.
 
Thank you caltrane74. Here is the photo from February 27 of the lineup of chairs outside the Aura sales office on Bay St. and they have a security guard.

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