Chartwell Place, 5001 Finch Ave E: Big 1990s Suites at Agincourt Prices

Chartwell Place is the building I point buyers to when they want real square footage in Scarborough without paying new-tower prices. This 1996 Monarch tower at 5001 Finch Avenue East sells at roughly half of what newer Agincourt product asks per square foot, with a pool, a sauna and two-bedroom suites that are actually sized for two people. The trade-off is a fee near a dollar a square foot, and that is the number to understand first. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

A 1990s Monarch tower built for living, not investing

Chartwell Place belongs to a generation of Scarborough condos that were sold to owner-occupiers, many of them families and downsizers, rather than to investors buying small suites to rent out. You can see it in the stock: the suites on the market are mostly two-bedroom, two-bathroom plans in the 800 to 1,000 square foot range, which is a size many new towers now reserve for their most expensive units.

Monarch was one of the larger GTA builders of that era, and this is a poured-concrete tower with underground parking. Phase I at 5001 Finch was the first of two buildings; Phase II followed at 2628 McCowan Road, so you will sometimes see the pair marketed together as the Chartwell Place community.

Current listings describe the building as quiet with low turnover, and the numbers back that up in a modest way: three suites for sale and none listed for lease out of 209 at the time I checked. A building with no lease listings at all is usually one where most people live in their own units.

Layouts: split bedrooms and separate dining rooms

The two-bedroom plans here follow the traditional split layout, with the bedrooms on opposite sides of the living space and a bathroom for each. That is the arrangement that works for roommates, a parent living with an adult child, or a couple where one person works from home, and it is much harder to find in post-2010 construction.

Room sizes are generous by current standards. One active listing shows a separate dining room of about 4.2 by 3.3 metres and a primary bedroom of about 3.8 by 3.0 metres, the kind of dimensions that take a full dining table and a king bed without the furniture gymnastics new suites demand. Kitchens are typically closed or semi-open rather than a strip of cabinets along a living-room wall.

Expect 1990s finishes unless a seller has renovated. Some owners have redone flooring, paint and appliances, others have not, so two suites with the same floor plan can be very different purchases. Listings also describe in-suite laundry, central air and gas-fired forced-air heating; ask how the heating and cooling equipment in your suite works and how old it is.

The fee: why it reads high, and what to ask

Across the three active listings, monthly fees run from about $840 to just over $1,000, which works out to roughly $0.99 per square foot. On paper that is high for Scarborough, and it is the first objection I hear from buyers comparing this building with a newer one.

Two things matter in that comparison. First, the fee covers a full recreation package, including an indoor pool, whirlpool and sauna, which a newer building with a lower fee usually does not have. Second, at 30 years old, part of the fee is building the reserve fund for work an older tower must eventually do. A low fee in a building this age would worry me more than a fair one.

I could not confirm exactly which utilities are bundled into the fee, so do not assume. Get the status certificate and the most recent budget, and check whether heat, hydro, water and parking are included or billed to you. That single question can move the real monthly cost by a meaningful amount either way.

Daily life at Finch and McCowan

The building sits by Finch Avenue East and McCowan Road, and suites on the right side look across to Woodside Square, the mall with a grocery store, a cinema and a long list of restaurants. For a lot of residents that is the whole point: errands, groceries and dinner out without needing the car.

This is an established, largely residential part of Agincourt, where daily needs are met by malls and plazas along the main roads rather than by a high street. The transit, school and walkability figures for the address are in the data panel on this page, so I will not repeat them here.

What you do not get is a downtown-style street life at your door. Finch here is a wide arterial road built for traffic, and the neighbourhood rewards people who value space and convenience over nightlife. If that matches how you live, Chartwell Place makes a lot of sense.

What Chartwell Place costs per square foot

The building average is about $494 per square foot. That is well below what newer condos in Agincourt and the wider Scarborough market ask, and far below new-construction pricing. You are paying for age, not for location: the corner itself is a perfectly practical one.

There were three suites for sale when I checked, asking between $499,000 and $550,000, with fees between about $840 and $1,007 a month. That works out to roughly $0.99 per square foot in fees, so the carrying cost on a larger suite is real money and should go into your mortgage math alongside property tax.

With so few listings at once, any single sale can move the averages. If you want to see what has actually traded here, my building sold report gives the aggregate picture without the noise of one-off listings.

Building specifications

Amenities at Chartwell Place

An indoor pool, whirlpool and sauna in a 209-suite building is a full recreation centre in your basement, and it is a large part of why the fee looks the way it does. Guest suites are a genuine plus for families with relatives who visit from abroad for weeks at a time.

Jatin’s honest take on Chartwell Place

Chartwell Place — frequently asked questions

Looking at Agincourt, L’Amoreaux, Milliken, Dorset Park and Wexford in Scarborough more broadly? Start with my Toronto community guide — the neighbourhoods, what each pocket is like, and how they compare.