Avonshire, 100 Harrison Garden Blvd: Tridel’s Pool Building by the Park

Avonshire is the building I point to when a buyer wants Tridel construction near Yonge and Sheppard but does not want to live 30 floors up. It is 15 storeys, it sits on the park at the centre of Tridel’s Avondale community, and it has an indoor pool, which is still the amenity most people ask me about first. The trade-off is that it is a big building, and your heating cost is not in the fee. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

A mid-rise inside a tower neighbourhood

The Avondale area southeast of Yonge and Sheppard is mostly towers. UrbanToronto describes Tridel’s Avondale community as a group of buildings set around a central park, with Avonshire at 100 Harrison Garden as the 15-storey, 453-unit building with a gym, a pool and guest suites. Next door, Skymark at Avondale rises much higher, and Tridel’s later Aristo at Avonshire at 120 and 130 Harrison Garden added 472 more suites in 2014.

That height difference matters more than it looks on paper. At 15 storeys, Avonshire is a wide building rather than a tall one, so a large share of suites sit on lower and middle floors with views over the park and the low-rise streets around it, not over the city. If you want a skyline view, Aristo or Skymark will give you more of it. If you want to feel closer to the ground, Avonshire is the better fit.

The other neighbour worth knowing is the Avonshire Parkside townhome row on Oakburn Crescent and Harrison Garden, built the same year. It gives this corner a lower, more residential edge than most of the Yonge and Sheppard area.

What Tridel and Del mean for a buyer

Tridel has built along North York’s stretch of Yonge for decades, and UrbanToronto credits it with a large part of the corridor’s transformation, from the Avondale towers to Hullmark Centre at the Sheppard subway. For a resale buyer, the developer name matters mainly because it tells you how the building was specified and how it has been run since.

Condos.ca lists Del Property Management as the manager. Del is part of the Tridel family of companies, so the same group that built the building has been managing it. That can mean continuity and good records. It also means you should read the board minutes yourself rather than assume, because a familiar name is not the same thing as a well-funded reserve.

Avonshire is about 15 years old, which puts it at the stage where the first larger replacement items start to appear in the reserve fund study: pool equipment, roofing, the garage membrane and the suite heating and cooling units. None of that is unusual. What you want to see is that the study plans for it and that the reserve is keeping pace.

Suite sizes and what is actually on the market

Condos.ca does not publish a full size range for this building, so I would not quote one. What I can say is that the suites on the market when I checked were mostly one-bedroom-plus-dens and two-bedrooms, and two of them sat in the 800 to 899 square foot band. That is larger than the typical new one-bedroom going up near Yonge and Sheppard today.

Listing descriptions also mention two-bedroom-plus-den plans. Ask for the floor plan of any suite you are considering and compare it with the registered plan in the status certificate, because marketing names and actual square footage do not always line up.

Choosing between Avonshire, Aristo and the townhomes

Because Tridel built several phases around the same park, buyers here are often choosing between neighbours rather than between neighbourhoods. Aristo at Avonshire is the newer, taller option, with more suites at height and a higher price per square foot. The Avonshire Parkside townhomes give you ground-level living and a lower price per square foot, but a very different maintenance picture.

Avonshire sits in the middle: an apartment building with a pool and concierge, a few years older than Aristo, and priced accordingly. If you are weighing two of these, compare the fee inclusions line by line, the reserve fund studies side by side, and which side of the park each suite faces. Those three things usually decide it.

The daily reality of Harrison Garden

Harrison Garden Boulevard is a local street tucked between Yonge Street and the 401, which gives you two things at once: quick access to the highway and a quieter frontage than the buildings on Yonge or Sheppard themselves. The park in the middle of the community is the real outdoor space here, and it is a genuine advantage for dog owners and families.

The busy side of the location is the traffic. Rush hour around Yonge, Sheppard and the 401 ramps is slow, and drivers should test their commute at the hour they will actually drive it. The transit, school and walkability details are in the data panel on this page.

About $753 a square foot, with heat on your own account

Condos.ca puts the building average at about $753 per square foot. That sits between Skymark at Avondale next door at about $703 and Tridel’s newer Aristo at Avonshire at about $811. In other words, you are paying a little more than the older towers for a 2011 building, and a little less than the 2014 phase, which is about where I would expect it.

Fees on the active listings averaged about $0.68 per square foot. That looks low, and partly it is, but compare what is covered. Condos.ca lists common elements, building insurance, parking and water. Heat and hydro are not listed, so budget for both separately and ask the seller for recent utility bills.

When I checked there were four suites for sale, asking between $595,000 and $868,000, with monthly fees between about $551 and $803. Five suites were listed for rent, which tells you the building has a meaningful investor presence alongside owner-occupiers.

If you are deciding between a suite here and one at Aristo, work out the total monthly cost of each, including heat and hydro, and put the difference in price per square foot against the difference in age. That comparison usually tells you more than either building’s average on its own.

Building specifications

Amenities at Avonshire

An indoor pool and guest suites are the two amenities that make Avonshire stand out from the older towers nearby. With 453 suites sharing them, expect the gym and pool to be busiest on weekday evenings and weekend mornings.

Jatin’s honest take on Avonshire

Avonshire — frequently asked questions

Looking at Willowdale, Yonge & Sheppard, Bayview Village and North York Centre more broadly? Start with my Toronto community guide — the neighbourhoods, what each pocket is like, and how they compare.