Musée Condos, 525 Adelaide St W: The Outdoor Pool and the Art Galleria

Musée is the building I bring up when someone wants King West and Queen West within a few blocks and a pool they can actually lie beside in July. Plaza finished it in 2017 with an outdoor pool, cabanas and steam rooms, and a fee that covers heat and cooling. What you trade for that is a big building with smallish suites. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

A warehouse-style base with a glass tower above

Quadrangle designed Musée with a dark, brick-like base that picks up on the old warehouses of the area, then steps back about halfway up and switches to glass. It is a familiar King West formula, and blogTO’s reviewer at launch was frank that the building looks a lot like its neighbours.

The storey count varies by source. BlogTO and UrbanToronto describe a 17-storey building, while condos.ca lists 21 floors. Suite counts differ slightly too: about 437 at launch versus 440 on condos.ca. Either way, this is a large building for a side street, with a lot of neighbours sharing the elevators.

Musée went up at the same time as OneEleven at Bathurst and Adelaide, and the two now form a pair at that corner. If you are cross-shopping, the comparison is useful: similar age, similar location, and different amenity packages.

The art galleria and the parkette

The name comes from the building’s cultural idea. Plaza planned a publicly accessible outdoor galleria at grade to host rotating art, connecting through to a parkette of roughly 8,000 sq ft behind the building. It gives the ground floor something better than a blank wall and a garage door.

BlogTO’s reviewer made a fair point at launch: an art program only works if someone keeps it going, and the neighbourhood already has plenty of galleries. When you visit, look at the galleria and the parkette and judge for yourself how well they are maintained today. It tells you a lot about the board and the budget.

The parkette matters more than it sounds. Green space between King and Queen west of Spadina is scarce, and having some at your back door is a real daily benefit, especially if you have a dog.

At launch, blogTO’s reviewer also noted that groceries nearby were limited and that the area was not a cheap place to shop or eat. That is still broadly the character of the blocks between King and Queen west of Spadina: excellent restaurants, bars and cafés, and you pay for the convenience. The data panel on this page lists what is within walking distance today.

Suite sizes and layouts

Condos.ca lists suites from about 509 to 1,343 sq ft. The current market is dominated by the 600 to 699 sq ft range: of the residential suites for sale when I wrote this, every one was in that band, mostly one-bedroom-plus-dens with a single two-bedroom.

That tells you what this building mostly is: compact one-bedroom-plus-dens and small two-bedrooms. A 650 sq ft two-bedroom will have at least one tight bedroom, and you should check whether it has a window or relies on a sliding glass panel for light. In a one-plus-den, ask whether the den can actually take a bed or only a desk.

The larger plans at the top of the size range are rare in resale. If you need real space, be prepared to wait for one, or look at older nearby buildings where larger suites are more common.

What the fee covers

Condos.ca lists the fee as covering common elements, heat, air conditioning, water, parking and building insurance. Having heating and cooling in the fee is a genuine advantage over many towers of the same vintage, which put the HVAC on a suite meter.

On current listings, fees work out to roughly $0.73 per sq ft. For a building that runs an outdoor pool, steam rooms and a theatre, that is reasonable. Hydro for lights and appliances is still your own bill.

As always, parking in the inclusion list does not mean every suite has a space. I noticed a couple of listings in the building priced in the $50,000s with fees under $60 a month, which look like parking or locker units offered separately. If the suite you want has no parking, ask whether one can be bought.

One more thing on running costs. A building of about 440 suites spreads the cost of its pool, steam rooms and concierge across a lot of owners, which is part of why the fee per foot stays moderate. The same scale means a lot of elevator traffic at peak times, so ask current residents how the morning rush feels.

Price per square foot and current asking prices

Condos.ca puts the building average at about $909 per sq ft. For a 2017 building in this location with heat and cooling in the fee, I consider that fair. Compact suites always price higher per foot, so compare it against buildings with a similar suite mix, not against older towers full of large plans.

When I wrote this there were 13 listings for sale and five for lease. Setting aside the low-priced listings that appear to be parking or lockers, the residential suites I could see asked between roughly $565,000 and $640,000, all in the 600 to 699 sq ft range, with fees of about $405 to $510 a month.

That is a lot of near-identical inventory at once, which puts buyers in a good position. Ask what similar suites closed for, not what they are listed at; the data panel on this page shows actual sales.

For a specific suite, I can pull the closest comparables in the building, by floor and exposure, through my building sold report.

Building specifications

Amenities at Musée Condos

An outdoor pool with cabanas is rare in this part of downtown, and it is the amenity people remember. The three guest suites matter more than they sound in a building where most suites are under 700 sq ft and there is nowhere to put visiting family.

Jatin’s honest take on Musée Condos

Musée Condos — frequently asked questions

Looking at King West, Liberty Village and CityPlace more broadly? Start with my Toronto community guide — the neighbourhoods, what each pocket is like, and how they compare.