Flo Condos, 28 Avondale Ave: Devron Boutique Building, High Fees

Flo Condos is the small building I show to buyers who want Yonge and Sheppard without a 40-storey tower. It is a boutique Devron condominium from 2016 on the corner of Avondale and Bales, designed by Kirkor Architects, with a lobby and rooftop that feel more considered than the suite sizes might suggest. The catch is the fee, and I will be direct about it. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

A boutique building on a side street

Flo sits on the corner of Avondale and Bales, a couple of blocks southeast of the Yonge and Sheppard subway interchange. That small shift off the main roads is the building’s best feature: you are close to everything at the intersection, but the street outside is residential rather than six lanes of traffic.

Day to day, the Yonge strip with its groceries, restaurants and the Sheppard Centre and Yonge and Sheppard retail is a short walk away, and Highway 401 is close for anyone who drives. The panel beside this review shows the nearest subway station and the walking time.

Devron developed it and Kirkor Architects designed it. Devron’s marketing described the design as inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, which in practice means stacked horizontal balconies played against the vertical lines of the glass. Whether that reads as Fallingwater is a matter of taste, but the building does look more deliberate than many mid-2010s infill projects.

The building is landscaped on all four sides and has two entrance porticos, which gives the corner a finished look at street level. For a building this small, that attention to the ground floor is not something to take for granted.

Avondale is still filling in. Several boutique and mid-rise buildings have gone up on these side streets over the past decade and more sites are in the pipeline, so if your suite has an open view, check the City of Toronto’s development applications map before you buy.

How big is it, exactly?

Sources disagree on the size. When UrbanToronto covered the excavation in 2014, it described an 11-storey building with 65 units. Condos.ca now lists 12 storeys and 94 suites. The difference may come from how the floors are counted or from changes during construction, but I could not confirm which is right. The status certificate and the registered declaration will settle it.

Either way, this is a small community by North York Centre standards. You share a lobby and elevators with far fewer people than in the towers nearby, and that is the reason many owners choose it.

The trade-off of small size is financial. Fewer owners share the cost of staff, the elevators, the roof and the garage, so the per-square-foot fee tends to be higher, which is exactly what I see here.

Compact suites with floor-to-ceiling glass

Condos.ca puts suite sizes at roughly 460 to 803 sq ft. That makes Flo a building of one-bedrooms, one-plus-dens and compact two-bedrooms, not family-sized suites. The developer highlighted floor-to-ceiling windows and treetop views, and on a low building surrounded by the Avondale streets, the lower floors do look into the trees rather than at other towers.

The marketing also mentioned a small collection of garden suites at the base. If outdoor space at grade matters to you, ask specifically for one of those, and check how private the terrace is from the street.

In compact plans, the den and the second bedroom deserve a hard look. Confirm whether the den has a door and a window, and whether the second bedroom fits more than a single bed.

The fee, honestly

When I checked, active listings showed fees around $1.04 per square foot. That is high for North York, and on a 700 sq ft suite it adds a meaningful amount to your monthly cost compared with the larger towers nearby.

The fee does include a lot: common elements, heat, air conditioning, building insurance, parking and water. In many newer towers, heating and cooling are on a suite meter and parking is a separate charge, so add those back before you compare. That narrows the gap, but in my view it does not close it.

Because the fee is already high, I want to see how it has moved over the past five years and what the reserve fund study projects. In a small building, one large repair can push fees up quickly.

What Flo Condos cost

Condos.ca puts the building average at about $831 per square foot. That is a little below the towers closer to Yonge and Sheppard, and I think the fee is part of the reason: buyers price the monthly cost into what they are willing to pay.

When I checked, three suites were for sale and two for lease. Asking prices ranged from about $499,999 to $608,000, and monthly fees on those listings ran from about $574 to $760.

Keep in mind that compact suites carry a higher price per square foot than larger ones, so a building average built mostly from one-bedrooms is not directly comparable with a tower full of two-bedrooms. Compare Flo per square foot against suites of a similar size, and add the fee difference over five years to your sums before you decide which is cheaper.

With a small building, a few sales a year is normal, so I compare Flo against other boutique buildings in Avondale as well as its own history. For what has actually closed, see my building sold report.

Building specifications

Amenities at Flo Condos

The amenities are scaled to a boutique building: a concierge in a lobby with a 15-foot ceiling and a water feature, a gym, a party room and a rooftop terrace with a trellis-shaded dining table for eight. There is no pool, and the rooftop is the shared space I would expect most owners to actually use.

Jatin’s honest take on Flo Condos

Flo Condos — 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.