East 55 Condos, 55 Ontario St: A 2022 architectsAlliance Tower in Moss Park

East 55 is one of the cleaner-looking towers to go up on the quiet side streets between Jarvis and Parliament in the last decade. Lamb Development and architectsAlliance gave it a black-brick podium, a white precast grid above and, unusually for this pocket, an outdoor pool. It is newer than almost everything around it, and that cuts both ways when you look at the fees. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

Black brick below, a white grid above

architectsAlliance designed East 55 as a seven-storey podium with a tower rising above it. The podium is clad in panels with black ironspot brick set into them, with reflective glazing and slim black mullions, which helps it sit comfortably among the older brick buildings on Ontario and Berkeley Streets.

The tower is wrapped in white precast panels arranged as a grid of three-storey sections, with window wall and operable windows inside each frame. Full-length inset balconies run along the north and south faces. UrbanToronto noted at top-off in 2020 that the built version came out cleaner than the marketing renderings, which had shown white aluminum mullions and two-storey frames.

UrbanToronto counted 24 storeys at top-off, while condos.ca records 25. The difference is likely how the mechanical penthouse or ground floor is counted; it does not affect what you are buying.

What the suites are like

Recent listing descriptions point to exposed concrete ceilings of about nine feet, floor-to-ceiling windows, wood-look laminate floors and central air with forced-air gas heating inside the suite. Balconies are described as about six feet deep with a gas line for a barbecue, which is a genuinely useful detail in a downtown building.

Suite sizes on condos.ca run from roughly 426 to 2,243 square feet, so the mix goes from compact one-bedrooms up to large upper-floor suites. Most of what trades sits in the one-bedroom-plus-den and two-bedroom range.

The inset balconies keep the facade tidy, but they also mean the balcony is partly enclosed by the building on three sides. That gives you more privacy and wind shelter and somewhat less direct light in the living room than a projecting balcony would. Stand in the suite at the time of day you will actually use it.

Listings describe underground parking and storage lockers in the building, along with visitor parking. Neither parking nor a locker is part of the maintenance fee, so confirm exactly what is deeded to the suite and whether it carries its own monthly charge.

A quiet street in a part of town that is filling in

Ontario Street here is a residential side street rather than a main road, which is the building’s best day-to-day quality. You are a short walk from King Street East, the St. Lawrence Market area to the south-west and the Distillery District to the south-east, without living on top of streetcar tracks.

The pocket is changing quickly. Lamb has pursued further projects at Ontario and Richmond, and Metrolinx is building the Ontario Line’s Corktown Station at King and Berkeley, a few minutes south. Expect construction around you for several years, and better transit at the end of it.

Moss Park is a mixed neighbourhood that changes character block by block, and buyers react to it differently. I always suggest walking the block at night and on a weekend before you commit. The automatic panel on this page covers transit, schools and walkability.

The fee question

The fee here only includes common elements, building insurance and water. Heat and cooling run through your own forced-air system, and hydro is separate, so the maintenance fee is not buying you utilities the way it does in older buildings.

Active listings were showing fees of about $1.04 per square foot. That is high for a building only a few years old with no utilities bundled in. It may reflect the cost of running an outdoor pool and concierge in a 276-suite building, the reserve fund contributions, or both. Ask for the current budget and the most recent reserve fund study before you assume it will stay where it is.

Remember too that a building this new does not yet have a long fee history. The first few budgets after registration are often set by the developer’s estimates, and they can move once the owners’ board has a few years of real operating costs. That is one more reason to read the budget rather than rely on today’s number.

Pricing: near $940 a square foot

condos.ca puts the building average at about $939 per square foot. That is at the higher end for Moss Park and close to what you see in newer St. Lawrence and Corktown buildings, which is roughly where a 2022 tower on a quiet street should sit.

At the time of writing there were four suites for sale and nine for lease. Two-bedroom suites in the 800 to 999 square foot range were asking between about $800,000 and $820,000, with monthly fees running from roughly $840 to $980. That is a tight cluster, which helps when you are trying to judge whether a given suite is priced fairly.

The lease side is busier than the sale side, with nine suites offered for rent at the time of writing against four for sale. That suggests a meaningful share of investor owners, which is typical of a newer downtown tower and worth knowing if you would rather live among owner-occupiers.

Run the fee into your numbers. On a two-bedroom, the gap between $1.04 and a more typical $0.70 to $0.80 per square foot for a newer building is a few hundred dollars a month, and it shows up directly in what a buyer can afford to pay when you sell. For aggregate recent trades, see my building sold report.

Building specifications

Amenities at East 55 Condos

The outdoor pool and rooftop deck are the draw; very few buildings in this part of Moss Park have a pool at all. It is a summer amenity in Toronto, though, so value it as a seasonal bonus rather than a reason to pay much more, and remember it is part of what your fee is carrying.

Jatin’s honest take on East 55 Condos

East 55 Condos — frequently asked questions

Looking at Church–Wellesley, Corktown, Moss Park and Cabbagetown more broadly? Start with my Toronto community guide — the neighbourhoods, what each pocket is like, and how they compare.