Meticulous ! ! !
 Most of you will know that I’m not the biggest fan of most Toronto
developers and that I do not allow advertising or any of those false editorial looking ads
that you find in all of the local ad rags (they are written by the developers to appear
that some independent journalist researched their development and wrote an article and the
pages are given to them for buying enough full page ads).
So you can rest assured that this is not an ad and know that I’m not being paid by
the developer for publishing this. Truth is truth and fact is fact and the facts are quite
clear when it comes to Edilcan. They just keep putting out quality buildings. This
father and son team are certainly not your average Toronto developers. The majority of
Toronto developers can’t built a reputation let alone a building. They are
entrepreneurs or just money people who can buy the land and cover the costs of architects,
lawyers etc. required to market condo developments and once they’ve presold enough
units they turn to a builder to build their concepts into reality.
Well, with Edilcan you are dealing with the builder who, every once and a while buys the
land themselves and does the whole enchilada and in this case they have consistently
delivered quality and value without a lot a headaches.
Their most recent project is located at the corner of Yonge and College (actually Carlton
St. as College changes name at Yonge Street) just across from the historic Maple Leaf
Gardens building that is now being converted into a Loblaws megastore (great for occupants
of the met as they’ll have grocery right across the street).
The Met is the only condo that has
come on stream on time in the city in many, many years! That’s right they actually
delivered the building on time. As an investor this is huge to you as the cost of money
equation (what you could have done with your money when invested in a two years late site)
is huge! This is because of the DiRocco’s hand’s on management from the get go.
The use their own building crews so you don’t end up dealing with sub-contractors
hired by sub-contractors whose only interest is in getting their piece of the overall pie
slapped together. These guys really take pride in delivering a good product!
A couple weeks back one of my clients asked to come down and meet him on his Occupancy
date at the Met to check out his suite. I’m always happy to accommodate my clients
and as this was his first condo investment I was glad that he called and asked me. Besides
I always like to check out the delivery of condos but usually this first glance is fraught
with more than a small dose of disappointment, .not so much for me but for buyers in
general as I work hard to not buy my clients into other than solid developments. |
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Unfortunately you
can’t always insure satisfaction as Context Developments, for example has proven a
huge disappointment to many of my clients. One of my clients purchased what was supposed
to be a luxury penthouse in Tip Top Lofts only to have their unit delayed and the only
satisfaction that offered to this family was to have them all move into a tiny one bedroom
unit in the building. The unit was delivered to them in deplorable condition with all of
their selections of colours and granites wrong. No apologies or compensation (don’t
for a minute think that the Condo Act offers you any protection as about the worst penalty
for developers is about equal to a parking ticket). I personally went to bat on their
behalf and was more than disappointed with their handling of the situation.
The Met proved to be the flip side
of this coin. It was delivered on schedule and virtually required almost no fix up. Now
there are always minor things but my client was thrilled with Edilcan’s prompt and
courteous attention.
The second phase of The Met is
following along the same lines with respect to being on schedule. As with most
developments I always have a few clients whose life situation has changed and they want to
sell their units (it’s actually called “assigning” the unit as you
can’t sell something that you don’t own and you don’t own your condo at
“occupancy”, you must wait for Registration or “title closing” as it
is referred to in the legal world).
The Met also has some excellent townhouses. Yesterday I did a PDI (“Pre Delivery
Inspection“) on behalf of one of my out of the country clients who could not do it
himself and I was impressed with the lack of deficiencies that I found.
The unit is a sub-penthouse with an uncompromised south view over the city including the
lake (41st floor). I was met by a very professional Edilcan employee (“Pat”) who
proved a refreshing aspect to the process (sometimes PDI’s are more an adversarial
event as I personally endured in a St. Clair area condo that I did for a client recently).
The whole process went smooth as silk as there was virtually no deficiencies that I could
find and you can rest assured after almost three decades at this I’m pretty good at
finding even the most obscure deficiency. As I pointed out even the most subtle things (I
can be quite anal) their full time finisher (Ernie) was their fixing them as we spoke
(talk about customer service)!
I feel like I’m should be trying to balance this perspective with some negatives but
I’ve got to be honest, there simply wasn’t any bones to pick! Congratulations
Edilcan on a job well done. It’s certainly refreshing to see quality at reasonable
prices which truly reflects “Value”.
I’m Charles Hanes |
