Montana
Montana Condos was completed early in 2010, a luxury tower by ProCura Real Estate Services that also built the next-door low-rise Residences of Mount Royal and the across-the-street 23-storey Emerald Stone. Montana has 27 full-width floors of air conditioned suites plus a further two floors of peaked roofing, two 28th-floor lofts for the penthouse, and also at that level a large common-property space that has housed ProCura's offices. The tower has 190 suites and offers terrific views in all directions. The builder promoted that it would be an "elegant, sophisticated sanctuary", and likened it to a five-star hotel.
Today Montana Condos is a high-end building with concierge service, a two-storey lobby, a gym, and a conference room, both just off the lobby. There's a loading dock for those moving in or out and three high-speed elevators means the largest one can be dedicated to moves without slowing down other vertical traffic. When assembling land, ProCura also bought the Nellie McClung house beside the Montana site. The former home of the "women are persons" champion became a municipally-protected building, acted as the sales centre, and will have a commercial use not connected with Montana Condos.
To contrast this taller building with the green-tinted-glass Emerald Stone, Peter Burgener of BKDI Architects came up with a blue-tinted tapering design with peaked roofs that almost reminds us of CPR chateau styling. Up near the sloping roofs are 13 large "estate homes", which started at $1.3 million. If that's a bit pricey, then the two-bedroom plus den plans started at $560,000, while more modest corner-suite two-bedroom layouts started at $450,000. Of course resale suites are available at to-be-negotiated prices.
The ground floor has four suites/office spaces, while floors two through 17 house eight suites each. The number of suites per level decreases to six on 18th floor and through the 21st, as suite floor areas grow larger. On 22 there are only four suites, on 23 it's down to three spacious homes, and there are only two homes each on floors 24, 25, and 26. The 27th floor is one enormous penthouse of 5,644 square feet, even though the building has tapered smaller near the top. This home has two loft areas overlooking living areas with their two-storey windows facing south and east, plus six ( ! ) balconies.
The standards at Montana were reflected in ProCura's information package for the building, which came in an embossed royal-purple presentation box lined with onion paper. Construction standards included extra-thick concrete floors, three-inch-thick virtually sound-proof windows, eight-inch-thick party walls and the three high-speed elevators. The tower has exceptional security in addition to full-time staff. It's all pricey, but very high quality, which extends through to interior finishing.
Beneath the tower are 225 titled parking stalls plus indoor visitor parking in a garage of five and a half levels plus 57 assigned storage lockers in various nooks. Exterior windows and doors at Montana are common property for maintenance and eventual replacement (not in my lifetime!). Unit factors--and thus operating costs--are allocated to suites in proportion to their sizes and parking stalls have a UF of one each. I keep on file the marketing materials and most floor plans plus the building's Condominium Plan.
