Toronto KING Toronto | 57.6m | 16s | Westbank | Bjarke Ingels Group

torplanner · Nov 17, 2023

Hard to market "mediocre" or "I mean, it's fine"

Full Metal Junkie · Nov 17, 2023

torplanner said:
Hard to market "mediocre" or "I mean, it's fine"

Presenting: mediocre apartment living.
Why not?

Blixtein · Nov 17, 2023

Luxurious mediocrity (…not this project though).

innsertnamehere · Nov 18, 2023

Full Metal Junkie said:
Nice to see that this posh swanky place is getting proper posh swanky appliances.

When I first visited a unit at Eau du Soleil, I was shocked to see the cheapest Whirlpool appliances installed by the builder. Sure, they were 'stainless', but only if your idea of stainless is 20% of the surface area finished in the cheapest black plastic:

View attachment 520399

And sure, the dishwasher washed dishes, but only if you didn't mind evacuating the apartment any time it did, because the noise level was unbearable. And yes, the countertop was definitely made from the cheap MDF of the Home Depot variety.

And sure, Eau du Soleil is not a swanky posh condo in the middle of Fashion District, but that sure as heck didn't stop Empire from marketing it as 'luxury waterfront living'. And they sure did charge luxury prices for it. Eau du Soleil went onto market at the same-ish time as, for example, Westlake Encore across the road, but Empire charged about 1.5X higher prices for their 'luxury' Eau du Soleil apartments. And for comparison, Westlake Encore ended up with GE Profile Series appliances (i.e. top-of-the-line at GE). And the countertops at Westlake were quartz.

Anyway, the point of my rant was that I'm glad the builder here treats their customers with respect when they market their project as 'luxury'.

Which also reminds me: I really ought to write up a review of Eau du Soleil in the real estate thread.

Empire from my experience uses extremely cheap finishes both in their high rise and low rise products.

It’s funny because their low rise stuff is actually more attractive than most builders for their exterior elevations, but the interiors are crap.

FastidiousHack · Nov 18, 2023

pajaro said:
"Luxury"... what an overused word in the real estate market at the moment.

I say this as someone who hates real estate agents, but I don't think it's overused. I think that we've become desensitized to it in the Toronto market, and maybe we expect luxury to be more exclusive, but relative to so many other places in/out of Canada many of the new units provide excellent standards of living.

That said, of course developers cheap out on materials, and the size of floorplans aren't huge. I won't argue that there's tons to improve, but there's a lot of really nice stuff being built right now.

coreybrendan · Nov 19, 2023

Taken from The Ace Hotel rooftop yesterday. Nice view overlooking KING and The Well.

AlexBozikovic · Nov 19, 2023

From The Well:

Riseth · Nov 19, 2023

Incredible image @AlexBozikovic

You can really see this beauty coming together from above.

evandyk · Nov 20, 2023

Was Alex at the Toronto Star for a job interview?

AlexBozikovic · Nov 20, 2023

evandyk said:
Was Alex at the Toronto Star for a job interview?

This is amusing, but no, I was not!

evandyk · Nov 20, 2023

It is a great photo, though. It led me to check out the Waterworks thread to see if there is any update on that. The kid loved that St. Andrews playground when he was smaller.

AHK · Nov 20, 2023

Monday, November 20: First of all, it looks like a live camera looking over the King Toronto project has been set up on top of the Allied / Riocan 620 King Street building. Presumably for purchasers to be able to view progress of the site - I would think it is too far away for security monitoring. Other pictures of work underway on the site, including both concrete deliveries, and a shipment of rebar waiting to be lifted.