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Condo Frenzy: 55/65 Bremner Blvd (Maple Leaf Square)

Forget about what the Realtors tell you! There are many things you need to know before you move into a downtown condo like Maple Leaf Square (55/65 Bremner Blvd) in Toronto.

Despite its glamourous exterior and lavish entrance hall, the building "features" one of the most convoluted  layouts that I have seen in a building. This particular condo consists of two towers, 55 Bremner/South Tower and 65 Bremner/North Tower. The two residential towers share a common elevated lobby on the 9th floor, which means that every time you want to access to the elevator of your tower, have to take an elevator to the 9th floor first to bypass all the office floors.  Even worse, you have to swipe your key card on at least two additional occasions to reach the elevator of the building in which you live, making for a frustrating and time-consuming experience. On the plus side, since there is usually a huge queue at each elevator, there will usually be someone holding the door for you.

Accessing each tower’s elevators can be a nightmare. It requires traversing half of the building complex, especially for 55 Bremner/South Tower residents. Below is a diagram of this activity.  

Now add some grocery bags or travel-luggage and you will be able to picture your daily "commute" going up and down the building. 

Luckily, for residents living in 55 Bremner/ South Tower, there is a back door on the side of the Gardiner Expressway underpass with elevators going from the ground directly to your floor (without residents having to arrive at the lobby and transfer elevators). But as you can see, there is no road on that side of the building, so forget about the convenience of parking your moving van or any vehicle in front of that entrance (unless you want to risk being tagged and towed).   


 

In terms of parking, the process is not as convenient as you might expect either. There is a total of 4 parking levels. The top two levels are reserved for commercial uses only. Therefore, you will have to drive down at least 3 levels to access your parking spot. Based on personal experience, driving down to the lowest level, P4, from P1 felt like a 5-minute excursion in total. What is even worse is that on a rainy day, the garage would be shut if the downpour is severe enough. This is what you will see in the stairwells of the underground parking on a rainy day.

Video Commentary: On the day shown, I was returning my Zipcar that was stationed in underground parking. The building’s security would not let me drive into the garage until I told him that I was just returning my Zipcar on P1. This is the snapshot of the stairwell of P1. You can kind of imagine what happened to P4. 

Last but not least, I believe this condo’s most notorious flaw is how it is so prone to fire alarms. While I was living at 55 Bremner Blvd last summer (2013), I experienced 5 to 6 fire alarms and two blackouts due to heavy thunderstorm over a one-month period! The fire alarm would sound off at random times of the day and would take an eerie toll on your ear, droning on for a long while before stopping. My theory explaining this overwhelming fire alarm frequency is that the two condo towers are designed to be attached to the offices and various venues beneath them, meaning that every time an alarm goes off in the various bars and restaurants, the supermarket, liquor store, or the hotel down below, it also trips up the fire alarm of the towers themselves. If you would like to know how many fire alarms were triggered every month in the building, this information can be requested from the Toronto Fire Department for a fee. It would be a good idea to obtain this information before you buy or rent at this place so that you can determine whether or not the fire alarm frequency will be an issue for your. 

With the level of activity going on in this one building at any given time of the day, it is understandable that there are so many fire alarms. So think twice if your agent wants you believe that a lot of amenities at your doorstep is always a good thing. Ultimately, if you are looking for peace and quiet, as well as easy accessibility, a condo like Maple Leaf Square may not be the place for you.