Robyn Urback – blogTO

Axiom Con­dos is the nuanced name for the set of two tow­ers planned for Ade­laide and George streets. Clearly, poten­tial buy­ers are to take the project as their cal­cu­lated, rea­soned, true real estate choice — but hey, look, it comes with a “sparkling water fea­ture!” A joint project by Green­park and Fieldgate, Axiom tow­ers will rise only mod­estly, but they will still cer­tainly bring added den­sity to Ade­laide East. Watch out, west end — Axiom is com­ing! Very, very slowly. Here’s a closer look at Axiom Con­dos.

SPECS

Address: 424 Ade­laide Street East
Num­ber of tow­ers: 2
Total num­ber of units: 480
Num­ber of storeys: 19,17
Types of units: Stu­dio, one bed­room, one-plus-den, two bed­room, two-plus-den
Unit sizes (in square feet): 415 – 1058
Ceil­ing heights: 9′ and 10′
Prices from: Low $200,000′s
Park­ing: $35,000
Main­te­nance fees: $0.52/sf
Main­te­nance fees exclude: Hydro, water, bicy­cle locker main­te­nance ($10.70)
Devel­oper: Green­park Homes and Fieldgate Homes
Archi­tect: Kirkor Archi­tects
Ameni­ties: 24/7 Concierge, lounge, the­ater room, games room, pet spa, fit­ness stu­dio, party room, out­door ter­race, sky deck
Expected occu­pancy: Decem­ber 2016

THE GOOD

Lest my eyes (or sixth grade math­e­mat­i­cal skills) deceive me, it seems Axiom is offer­ing its suites for much below the appar­ent new “norm” of $650-$700 per square foot. Indeed, these units are priced closer to $500-$550, which (sadly) is pretty com­pet­i­tive for a new down­town Toronto tower. Granted, ini­tial pric­ing is often deceiv­ing such that the term “start­ing from” usu­ally comes to mean “exclu­sive to just one suite on a low floor, with no view, basic fin­ishes, and next to garbage chute.” But hey, it’s afford­able, right? Chock it up to a cool­ing real estate mar­ket, sur­plus of new condo options (the chicken or the egg?) or the arguably less desir­able east-of-Yonge address, but Axiom def­i­nitely has pric­ing on its side. Until you read the fine print, that is, but that goes for most Toronto builds.

Now, I hinted at a sup­posed east-end infe­ri­or­ity — a point seem­ingly sup­ported by the glut of new con­dos poised to take over Rich­mond, King, and Ade­laide streets west. But there’s decid­edly less love on the other side of Yonge. What gives? Well, for one, the area just north of the Axiom site is still a lit­tle bit seedy, with a per­sis­tent row of dive bars on Queen and ques­tion­able night­time action at Moss Park. Retail lags a bit over here, too, with a cou­ple stretches of unoc­cu­pied spaces that would never be tol­er­ated a lit­tle fur­ther west. But I sus­pect that will change. Axiom will bring fancy new retail to its podium base (any­one want to wager $20 on Star­bucks?), and con­struc­tion will inevitably move east as devel­op­ers snatch up the last of skinny King West spaces. Axiom res­i­dents won’t be the firsts to the area, but they most cer­tainly won’t be the last either.

And if you can look past the occa­sional dive bar brouhaha, what’s not to love? You’re five min­utes from the St. Lawrence Mar­ket, four mintues from the Dis­tillery Dis­trict, and poten­tially right by the Down­town Relief Line. And until then (just 15 years, or so), there’s always the King streetcar.

THE BAD

What, exactly, is a bicy­cle locker main­te­nance fee? $10 per month to make sure exhaust from the park­ing garage doesn’t fil­ter into the bike room and con­t­a­m­i­nate your seat? The cost of a ran­dom stranger employed to clean your chain and inspect your brake pads once a month? Or some­thing even more friv­o­lous and unnec­es­sary? Seems almost as redun­dant as a pet groom­ing room in a condo that’s around the cor­ner from a pet spa. Oh, wait…

Axiom Con­dos suf­fers from the main plague that strikes too many new urban builds; that is, the space-saving pseudo-kitchen. While I’m sure some tal­ented multifunction-room dwellers can make good use of the kitchen/living/dining hybrid, the lack of counter space and hum­ming Energy Star by the liv­ing room cre­denza doesn’t seem overly charm­ing (at least, to those pre­ten­tious peo­ple who casu­ally use the term “cre­denza”). While the unit lay­outs seem pretty good over­all, actu­ally — with win­dows in most bed­rooms, the occa­sional walk-in or step-in closet, and fair-sized bal­conies for most suites — no space for the stand mixer is a def­i­nite drawback.

And don’t let Axiom’s seem­ingly innocu­ous 19 storeys fool you – this is one mega condo in dis­guise. Granted, ele­va­tor waits won’t be so bad with units divided between two struc­tures, but you can count on close to a thou­sand peo­ple sweat­ing in that fit­ness cen­tre and clog­ging up the park­ing garage entrance. High den­sity can mean high wear, which is bad news for your main­te­nance fees. And nerves.

THE VERDICT

Really depends on the price of a pint at one of those Queen East dives.

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Con­tact the Jef­frey Team for more infor­ma­tion – 416−388−1960

Lau­rin & Natalie Jef­frey are Toronto Real­tors with Cen­tury 21 Regal Realty.
They did not write these arti­cles, they just repro­duce them here for peo­ple
who are inter­ested in Toronto real estate. They do not work for any builders.
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bicy­cle lock­ers in codos prices

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