When it comes to space solutions, one size doesn’t fit all
Terrence Belford – Globe and Mail
Anyone who has ever lived in a Toronto condo – or an apartment – knows storage poses a challenge. If you live in a house, you just pile stuff away in the basement, the attic or the garage.
With a condo, however, there are none of these handy spaces to set aside things you may need in future or want to save in case someone else does. Where do you put the Christmas tree, the bicycle, the old rowing machine you thought you would use to trim down or the sofa that is still too good to relegate to a landfill?
The options boil down to three: buy a storage locker in your condo building – if any are still available; rent a cubicle in a public self-storage facility; or see if a friend or relative with a house or garage is willing to store your stuff.
I can’t help you with the last one. My basement is full – same with my garage. But I can tell you what the experts say about the other two.
First, storage lockers in Toronto condo buildings. Five years ago the price of most new condos included both a storage locker and a parking spot. Those days are fast disappearing. Builders today generally sell storage lockers as separate items.
The cost can range from somewhere just north of $100 to $500 a square foot, depending on the project, says Mark Cohen, senior vice-president at the Condo Store Marketing Systems. At the same time, lockers are larger these days then they were five years ago.
“At one point the city demanded they be large enough to store a bicycle,” he says. “So size grew from maybe three feet by five feet to four feet by six feet.”
What you get is pretty basic, a cubicle walled by chicken wire or chain link fencing, tucked away in a basement level, although in more upscale projects, lockers have been moved to ground level.
“With quite a few new buildings nowadays they are located behind the lobby. The idea is to make them more accessible to cyclists,” he says. “You would be surprised how many Bay Street lawyers cycle to work.”
You should also know that there are never as many lockers as there are suites. Builders generally create enough for 60 to 70% of the units and they usually don’t sell all that quickly, Mr. Cohen says.
“They are eventually absorbed but it can take the resale market to finally sell them out,” he says.
The small spaces in Toronto condos can make storage a challenge
Part of the reason they are not hot ticket items is because some buyers, especially first-timers, are already squeezing nickels to cover down payments, closing costs and all the expenses associated with moving in. Laying out another $2,500 to $5,000 has a low priority. It is often only after living in their suite a while they realize it is storage-challenged.
Which brings us to rentals in self-storage facilities. On the plus side, they come in a range of sizes, are usually climate controlled, are open round-the-clock and have state-of-the-art security.
The downside is that they can be expensive if you need a locker on a long-term basis.
At the new Spaces Self Storage on Eastern Avenue just east of Broadview Avenue in Toronto, a five-foot-by-five-foot cubicle costs $69 a month while the largest (10 by 20) goes for $399. The most popular is probably the five-foot-by-10-foot storage unit, which goes for $155 a month, says Stuart Skeete, operations manager.
He says 60% of Spaces’ business comes from the residential sector but condos play a relatively small role. His customers are mainly home owners needing a place to store furniture for future use.
“We are, however, increasingly seeing local condo owners taking units for things like golf clubs and other recreational stuff they don’t have room to store in their suites,” he says.
Those who rent storage units are generally older and better off financially, says Mike Cowie who has three storage operations in the Greater Toronto area, all under the Self Stor banner.
“First-time buyers are too concerned about just making the down payment, mortgage and monthly maintenance fees to worry about storage space,” he says. “Besides most of them have yet to accumulate enough stuff to need storage.”
He also says that Canadians are less mobile than our counterparts south of the border and while they are great savers of stuff, their preference is to pack it into a basement or garage – theirs or someone else’s.
“In the U.S. there is four square feet of commercial storage space for every man, women and child; in Canada there is just one square foot,” he says.
Mind you that may change as the men and women who have bought condos in Toronto over the past decade start the inevitable process of accumulating stuff. Your much loved but tired old couch just will not fit in a condo storage locker.
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