Adelaide Square, 140 Bathurst St: A 91-Suite Mid-Rise With Hydro in the Fee

Adelaide Square is the building I point to when a buyer tells me they want a predictable monthly bill downtown. It is a small, plain, 2000-era mid-rise on Bathurst Street, and its fee covers hydro, heat, air conditioning and parking, which almost nothing newer nearby does. The real questions here are about that fee and about what is planned across the street. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

A small building from before the King West boom

Adelaide Square went up in 2000, when the stretch of Bathurst between Queen and King was still mostly low warehouses, garages and two-storey storefronts. The corporation, MTCC-1348, was registered on 22 November 2000. It predates almost every tower you can now see from its upper floors.

At nine storeys and 91 suites, this is a small building by downtown standards. You share elevators and hallways with few neighbours, and the board represents an owner group small enough to actually know each other. The flip side is simple arithmetic: a large repair is split 91 ways rather than 400.

I could not find an architect credited for the building in any source I checked, and the developer, Tonum, is not a name you will see on many current projects. That does not matter much at this age. What matters now is how the corporation has been run for 25 years, and that is something you can read in the documents.

The fee covers hydro, and that changes the comparison

According to condos.ca, the maintenance fee here includes common elements, heat, hydro, air conditioning, water, building insurance and parking. Hydro in the fee is unusual in Toronto. Most buildings from this period onward have suite meters, so the owner pays Toronto Hydro or a sub-metering company directly.

That is why the fee looks high on paper. Condos.ca puts current listings at about $1.21 per square foot, and fees on the three active listings run from $684 to $833 a month. Before you compare that with a newer building at 70 or 80 cents, add back a hydro bill, a heating and cooling bill, and a parking charge to the cheaper building. The gap narrows quickly.

There is a catch with bulk utilities. Every owner shares the cost of the heaviest users, and any rise in energy prices lands directly in the corporation’s budget, which means it lands in your fee. Look at the utilities line in the current budget and how it has moved over the last few years, and ask whether the board has ever studied sub-metering.

One more practical point: with hydro in the fee, you cannot lower your own bill by being careful, and a neighbour who runs the air conditioning all summer costs you a little too. Most owners here accept that in exchange for knowing exactly what each month will cost.

Layouts: compact one-bedrooms up to 1,400 square feet

Condos.ca records suites from about 494 to 1,433 square feet. What tends to come up for sale is one-bedroom and one-plus-den plans between 500 and 700 square feet, with a smaller number of two-bedroom suites at the top of the range. A 1,400 square foot suite in a 91-unit building this close to King West is not common.

The building has an underground garage and visitor parking, and parking is listed in the fee. Do not read that as a promise that every suite comes with a space. Confirm on the listing and in the status certificate that the unit you are buying owns or has exclusive use of a spot, and ask the same question about a locker, which I could not confirm either way.

Condos.ca also lists a pet restriction. I could not find the details, so read the declaration and rules before you assume a large dog is fine.

Bathurst between Richmond and Adelaide: what is planned around you

Day to day, this is a practical address. Queen West is a short walk north, King West and its restaurants are south, and the Fashion District’s offices are all around you. Bathurst is a busy street with streetcar and truck traffic, so ask which way a suite faces; units away from the street will be noticeably quieter.

The block is not finished changing. In 2021 Allied Properties REIT filed plans for a 12-storey office building at 141 and 149 to 161 Bathurst, on the east side at Richmond, and a 16-storey rental building at 550 Adelaide Street West, both designed by BDP Quadrangle. That same summer, Originate proposed a 17-storey, 217-unit condominium at 164 Bathurst, on the southwest corner of Bathurst and Richmond, designed by Kirkor Architects and Planners.

Those were proposals in 2021 and I have not confirmed where each one stands today. If they proceed, expect years of construction nearby and changed views for suites facing north and east. If the view out your window is part of what you are paying for, check the City’s development application map for these addresses before you write an offer.

What Adelaide Square costs per square foot

Condos.ca puts the building average at about $903 per square foot. That is a resale number for a 25-year-old building, and it should be read alongside the fee: you are paying less per foot than you would in a new King West tower, but you are also carrying a fee that covers bills the newer building would hand to you separately.

There were four suites for sale and one for rent when the data was gathered. The one-bedroom and one-plus-den listings were asking between $449,900 and $459,999, and a larger two-bedroom was also on the market. Fees across the three active listings ran from $684 to $833 a month.

Asking is not selling. For what suites here have actually traded for, request my building sold report, which uses aggregate TRREB figures rather than individual sales.

Building specifications

Amenities at Adelaide Square

There is no gym, pool or rooftop listed, so the amenity package is really a security guard, a party room and a meeting room. In practice your fee is buying utilities and staffing, not a lifestyle floor, which suits owners who already have a gym and spend their evenings on Queen or King.

Jatin’s honest take on Adelaide Square

Adelaide Square — frequently asked questions

Looking at Queen West, Trinity-Bellwoods, Kensington and Little Italy more broadly? Start with my Toronto community guide — the neighbourhoods, what each pocket is like, and how they compare.