Spire Hillway Townhouses: 1973 Family Townhomes Near Don Mills and Steeles

Spire Hillway is where I look when a family tells me they need three bedrooms in North York and a detached house is out of reach. It is a 1973 townhouse complex tucked behind Don Mills Road and Steeles, spread across three little internal streets, and its appeal is space and price rather than polish. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

Three streets, one complex

The address is the first thing that confuses people. The complex is spread over Spire Hillway, Lofty Hill Way and Turret Hillway, a set of short private roads that loop through the site. condos.ca describes it as 1-106 Spire Hillway, 2-16 Lofty Hill Way and 1-16 Turret Hillway, while strata.ca gives a slightly different range of 1-110 Spire Hillway, 1-16 Turret Hillway and 1-15 Lofty Hillway.

Small differences like that are normal for complexes of this era, but they are worth resolving. Before you firm up, confirm on the status certificate that the unit you want is part of the corporation whose reserve fund and budget you are reading.

Once you are inside, the layout of the site is the attraction. The units face internal roads instead of Don Mills Road or Steeles, so the traffic noise of two busy arterials stays at the edges.

Family-sized layouts

The townhouses I see here have three bedrooms or more, which tells you who this complex was built for. Family-sized townhouses at this price point are scarce in North York, and that is the reason this complex keeps drawing buyers with children.

Two storeys of living space with bedrooms upstairs is a very different daily life from a three-bedroom condo apartment. Kids have their own floor, you are not sharing an elevator with strollers and groceries, and storage tends to be far easier than in a condo apartment. Confirm whether the unit has a basement, how much of it is finished, and square footage unit by unit, because 50 years of owner renovations means no two are exactly alike.

Renovation quality is the variable to watch. Some units will have new kitchens, flooring and windows; others will be close to original. Price the work, not the bedroom count.

Parking is the other thing to confirm. condos.ca lists no parking garage for this complex, so ask how parking works for your unit: whether it is a driveway, a garage within the unit or a surface space, and whether it is owned, assigned or exclusive-use common element. A second car can be the deciding factor for a family here, and the answer is in the declaration and the status certificate, not the listing.

What a 1973 townhouse corporation has to fund

A townhouse corporation this old has been through at least one full cycle of roofs, and probably windows, doors, fences and paving too. The question for you is where it is in the next cycle, and whether the reserve fund is keeping up.

No amenities are listed for this complex on condos.ca, which is normal for a townhouse corporation and is part of why the fees are moderate. The flip side is that almost all of your fee goes to the building envelope, the grounds and the private roads, so those are the items to check in the reserve fund study.

Read the last two years of board minutes too. They will tell you what work is planned, what the corporation has deferred and whether owners have raised recurring problems such as drainage or water in basements.

Life at Don Mills and Steeles

Spire Hillway sits in the north-west corner of Hillcrest Village, a few hundred metres south and east of the Don Mills Road and Steeles Avenue East intersection. Steeles is the city limit here, so Markham’s German Mills area is directly across the road and the shopping and services of both cities are within a short drive.

Hillcrest Village runs south to Finch Avenue, where Seneca Polytechnic’s Newnham Campus anchors the neighbourhood, and the Don Valley and Duncan Creek bring wooded slopes into its eastern side. Transit, schools and parks for this exact address are in the data panel on this page.

The neighbour to the north-west is 4005 Don Mills Road, a 1977 mid-rise condo. Buyers who want apartment living with a pool tend to look there; buyers who want stairs, a front door and more bedrooms look here.

Pricing and fees

At the time of writing, two units were listed for sale, asking from $740,000 to $750,000, with monthly fees between $550 and $664. That is a narrow sample, so treat it as a snapshot of asking prices, not a valuation. The sold-data panel on this page shows what has actually traded.

The fee range is moderate for a three-bedroom home in Toronto. condos.ca does not list what the fee covers, so confirm whether water, parking, cable or exterior maintenance is included before you compare it with a condo apartment. A fair comparison adds the townhouse owner’s own heat and hydro back in.

The more useful comparison is against freehold. A freehold townhouse or semi in this part of North York means owning the roof and the repair bills outright. Here you share those costs, and the fee is the price of that sharing. Whether it is good value depends on what the reserve fund says is coming.

Building specifications

Jatin’s honest take on Spire Hillway Townhouses

Spire Hillway Townhouses — frequently asked questions

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