UP AND COMING? By: Linda Wheeler For years now, the West Side of the city like King West, Trinity Bellwood’s Battery Park, and Liberty Village have been on the top of everyone’s list of places to live. Especially among the 20 and 30 something’s first time buyer. With great area influences like transportation at your doorstep, great restaurants like; Fresh, Shang high Cowgirl, Blow Fish to name a few of my favourites, coffee shops and local designers with store front windows that attract many a passer by. Several buyers are simply drawn to the area because of a real sense of community that has been formed over the past few years. Many of us can still remember what theses areas use to be not that long ago. It certainly wasn’t that pretty of a picture. Now with projects like the DNA, Electra Lofts, The Kings, and ZIP which is coming soon, you better get ready to go to war if you want in on some of these places because the competition is fierce. So be forewarned that once a neighbourhood is considered up and coming it’s already too late to get in on the action, so start your engines now and get in before it’s too late!!

But wait a minute, what’s this? Leslieville? Yes, that pocket of city which holds several old war time houses and old factories that span the Queens St E toward Carlaw and beyond is quickly becoming another highly sought after neighbourhood which at present may still appear to most as an area in much need of a overhaul. But consider yourselves on notice West Siders and all of you want to be Westsiders, because several developers are betting that the East Side will be taking some huge strides over the next few years. Anyone who has dared to venture out to this not so distant part of town recently can attest to the phenomenal level of change that has occurred on both the King Street and Queen Street East strip in the last 4 or 5 years, and there are no signs that the pace is slowing down. The original City in the Sky, St. James Town, will soon be surrounded by its own set of condo towers on two sides. Leslieville now has a Starbucks, and you know what that means!