Condo kids
Mom says sons and their friends benefit from highrise living in ways she never imagined
As Canadians we are raised to be polite and apologetic, to love our hockey and — when it’s time to start a family — to buy a house with a big old backyard for the kids.
This is certainly what I was programmed to believe when I had my oldest son, Nathaniel, almost 10 years ago.
My husband, Anthony, and I were living in a condo at Church and Wellington Sts., in the St. Lawrence neighbourhood, and almost immediately we felt pressured to start thinking about a house in a more “family-friendly” area.
During the first year of Nathaniel’s life in the condo, I put hundreds of miles on his baby stroller, walking through art galleries at the Distillery District, to the U of T campus to admire the fall leaves, up Yonge St. to check out all the Christmas decorations, and down to the lake to watch the Porter flights taking off and landing.
We were regulars at Union Station watching the Via trains, took swimming lessons at the community pool and cooled off in the splash pad at the local park with our neighbours.
Almost daily we hit the St. Lawrence Market to wave to the lobsters in the tank and pick up supplies for dinner.
Despite all of this richness, a part of me still felt like I was depriving my son by living in a downtown condo.
“Kids need a backyard!” I kept telling myself.
When Nathaniel was 2 and I was pregnant with our second son, Benjamin, we sold our condo and moved out of the downtown core. We wanted to be closer to my husband’s family in the city’s west end — and find a house.
We told ourselves: “We need to be grown-ups and settle down. It’s the best thing for the kids.”
But every time we looked at a house, we would get cold feet, reminding ourselves that Anthony wasn’t handy and that I sleep with one eye open whenever he travels for work. We came up with a compromise: We would rent a larger condo with more green space and then work up the nerve to finally buy a house in two years. We shook on it.
That was seven years ago and we still haven’t left.
Over the years, as we continued with our long-term lease at the Palace Pier condo community on Lake Ontario and the Humber River, we fell more in love with the lifestyle and all the benefits it has brought to our family.
Our building offers many larger units that are attractive to parents raising their kids. There are two- and three-bedroom suites, ranging from 1,550 square feet up to more than 3,000 square feet.
Our condo has three bedrooms, three bathrooms, a den and a solarium.
Its generous size allows us to host parties for all the condo kids as well as holiday dinners for our families. A similar-sized unit in the Pier recently broke the building’s record when it sold for $1.56 million.
Jackie Burns says she and her husband feel fortunate to give their sons the many benefits of a highrise home
When our lease comes up next year, we will finally commit for good to condo living and buy a unit in the building that has become our home. We are officially a loud-and-proud condo family.
In fact, we feel extremely fortunate to be able to give our sons this kind of childhood. They’re surrounded by friends — 50 kids in the building, and counting.
The condo parents come together to organize swimming lessons, tennis lessons and a weekly chess club. There are cooking lessons in the condo’s restaurant and the children gather to make greeting cards to bring to patients at nursing homes and hospitals.
Residents watch big sporting events on a big screen in the party room.
On cold or rainy days, they flock to the squash court to play basketball, floor hockey and soccer together. There are impromptu table tennis tournaments.
Hours are spent outside in the building’s backyard playing soccer, baseball and hide-and-seek while nearby parents use the communal barbecues.
Just recently, our building renovated the games room and added shuf- fleboard, foosball and a big-screen TV for movies, sports and gaming.
All of this more than makes up for my kids not having their own backyard.
As Toronto’s overheated real estate prices keep families out of the housebuying market, many are looking to condos. Toronto builders recognize this trend and have begun offering more three-bedroom units.
Special amenities for children are even starting to pop up in buildings such as the Eglinton, by Menkes Developments, which offers a kids’ playroom and jungle gym.
Tridel’s Islington Terrace development includes both indoor and outdoor spaces designed for children.
Parents thinking about raising their kids in a condo can look to major international cities, such as New York and Hong Kong, where highrise living has always been the norm.
There is arguably more quality family time when parents aren’t busy mowing the lawn, shovelling the drive or spending hours a day commuting to a house they can afford in the suburbs.
And there are more families living this way than you may think. According to the 2011 Census, 66 per cent of households with children lived in condos or apartments in downtown Toronto and 32 per cent throughout the whole of the city. Nationally, one in eight households is raising kids in condos or apartments.
Those numbers are expected to jump when new Census numbers come out in October.
Toronto recently launched the strategic initiative, “Growing Up: Planning for Children in New Vertical Communities” to address this new reality.