Wellington Estates

This 14-storey concrete tower and its adjacent two-level commercial building were built in 1973 and condo converted in 1996. There are 100 suites in the tower plus a retail unit taking up most of the ground floor, which currently houses a pub/restaurant, and two large basement spaces that are one legal unit, which at last glance the developer still owned ('only has one unit factor). The two-level retail building running from the tower to Fourteenth Street is divided into numerous retail and office spaces, but consists of only two legal units; the upper and the lower, so all users of those spaces are likely tenants of whoever owns each floor of that building.

There's a large indoor parking area underlying the retail building and its surface parking lot. The indoor parking is entirely common property, providing space for almost 100 vehicles, and a handful of one-bedroom suites have their parking stall at grade off the back alley. The tower's lobby is accessed off Fifteenth Avenue at the property's east end. The pub exhausts its kitchen over the path to that front door, so whenever I visit the building I have a sudden craving for French fries.

Above the ground floor the tower houses eight suites per floor facing either east or west, with half the suites being two-bedroom corner homes and half being one-bedroom "inside" suites. The two one-bedroom suites facing west on each floor are the smaller at about 630 square feet to allow for the elevator shafts, while the east-facing one-bedroom suites are about 689 square feet. The corner two-bedroom homes vary between a roomy 936 square feet and an even larger 961 square feet. On the 15th floor (there's no 13th), there are four penthouses of 1,590 to 1,654 square feet, and of course views from these upper floors can be impressive.

At last word well-behaved pets, perhaps limited to caged birds, cats and dogs, were being permitted. Condos contributions include in-suite electricity, but not maintenance or replacement of exterior windows and doors, which were excluded from the common property by special resolution in 2002. I have the Wellington Estates condominium plan on file.