Thoughts on Toronto's Liberty Village?

September 23, 2007 5:32 PM

Torontonians: What do you think of Liberty Village?

I'm a young (early 20's) IT professional working for a tech company and I may have an opportunity to transfer to the company's Mississauga location. If I do this I'd like very much to live closer to downtown Toronto and commute. A friend who already lives in the city recommended Liberty Village because of its proximity to the Gardiner for my commute and its recent revitalization. I'm wondering what people think of Liberty Village as a place to live. Roughly how expensive is the cost of living? Is it safe (please don't make fun, I'm a small town Ontario boy)? Are all the necessary amenities inside the neighborhood or will I have to venture out for most of the stuff? Given the number of condo developments there, would I want to rent or buy? Answers to these questions and any other thoughts about the neighborhood would be much appreciated!

posted by saraswati to grab bag (11 comments total)

Liberty Village seems like a nice enough area to live. There is tons of new development there. It's full of yuppies as far as I can tell. There is a Dominion right in the centre of it, plus a few other shops, making it easy to get groceries. There are a few nice restaurants too. There's a club called Maro that's not bad. It's close enough to downtown you could venture out if you felt so inclined. The TTC access kind of sucks. The King St car is right there, but that thing gets packed like a mother fucker. If you go check out the area some time you'll see it's a very planned community.

I would think it's a good place to buy. I can't imagine Condo prices there will dip given its location, and I think rent would match a mortgage. You'll need to look into that more.

I think it's pretty safe. It is close to Parkdale, which some people may tell you is scary.
posted by chunking express at 6:45 PM on September 23, 2007

Also, for the most part Toronto is very very safe. Even the sketchier neighbourhoods really aren't all that bad. I think if you use some common sense you should be fine wherever you may be. But to reiterate, Liberty Village is far far far from sketchy.
posted by chunking express at 6:47 PM on September 23, 2007

Liberty Village is indeed close to the Gardiner, but so are condos on Queen's Quay at Spadina, or Bathurst. In fact, anywhere along the lakefront is a straight forward car commute to Mississauga. Liberty is being revitalized. I would say that it is still in the process of being revitalized. I'm not sure what your expectations are, but it is not a village as the name implies. There are certainly very gentrified sections of it, and others that reflect the warehousey neighbourhood that it once was. I would say that condos in that area would be slightly on the higher end. You certainly could find cheaper places to live than Liberty Village and still be in a commuting postion.

Roughly cost of living: I would guess for a one-bedroom, probably starting at $800/month rent at least. Small studio condos could probably still be purchased for $200, 000.

Safety: It used to be more warehousey so there are sections of it that I would not be comfortable in at night. Parts of it seem pretty quiet to me. The area is just east of Parkdale, which has a reputation of high crime, and high lower income population. While, this does seem to be true to my eyes, I also find Parkdale awake at night (as the ladies walk the street etc.) so you can come home late at night and there will be people around. Not sure what you mean by safe? What makes you not feel safe in a big city? If you are driving home, and park your car in a condo garage, you will be pretty safe.

Amenities: I would say that Liberty doesn't really have that. It's not really a village as I mentioned. You won't have to go far, there are grocery stores west in Parkdale.

Buy or Rent: Depends on your financial position, depends on whether you plan on staying awhile. You might want to rent a place month-to-month just to try it out. If you do end up buying, you will get better bang for your buck more West in Etobicoke. You'll still be minutes from the city, and have a slighter shorter commute to Mississauga.

Hope that helps. Hard to answer without knowing what you are looking for. What kind of city experience are you looking for? A step out the door, steps away from restaurants/bars? Or something else?
posted by typewriter at 7:05 PM on September 23, 2007

We looked out there when we were seeing condos. It's in a safe enough neighbourhood, but a lot of it is not geared to someone without a car. We noticed that once you were away from the major streets there was very little transit.

If you look at buying, be aware that (from what we saw) the condo developments are thrown up very quickly and so suffer in quality from that. We saw several different units from different developers and common failings among them were poor layouts and shoddy construction.

We ended up buying further east, at Bathurst. I wouldn't recommend buying unless you plan on being in town for a few years - the condo market still has a fair bit of volatility in it. We're in an established building but people who bought in the new developments around Spadina, south of the railroad lands actually lost value on their condos in the last year or two.
posted by Dipsomaniac at 7:26 PM on September 23, 2007

Liberty Village is an invention of developers. There are a couple of cool old warehouses and a really chic restaurant, but the rest is a pretty average townhouse development. It's quiet at night, which is creepy, but not exactly high-crime. Actually, most of parkdale has quieted down, except for stretches of Queen West, and even those still have a lot to offer.

Liberty village is best for those who want to be near the club district. It's more expensive than parkdale, and has a totally different vibe. It's young, it's clean, it's close to nice things, but doesn't have a whole lot of soul. Just a vespa dealership and some grocery stores.

If you want to be close to the Gardner, but still have some city life, I might suggest going a little farther west, just because it's more fun and a lot more friendly. It's hard for me to recommend a neighbourhood without knowing you

BTW, Toronto is not that scary, except in a few horrible slums, and generally the violence is not that random. It's safer than many other Canadian cites. Personally, I spend very little time thinking about crime /knock on wood/ much less than I do when I visit cities like London or Niagara Falls.

If you can wait to buy, please do. There are soo many Condos the price is bound to go down. DIfferent parts of toronto appeal to different people. You might prefer Etobicoke, or Parkdale, or the beach, or even a nice stretch of Queen West.
posted by gesamtkunstwerk at 7:59 PM on September 23, 2007

Good advice so far. If you've never lived in Toronto, buying a place without knowing the areas seems like a bad idea. Rent a place, explore the city and then take the plunge. One good thing about Liberty village is the GO station which will get you out to Mississauga. But it's not a village or even much of a neighbourhood. It's mostly offices and dead on the weekend.
posted by kamelhoecker at 8:51 PM on September 23, 2007

I also think renting and checking the city out is probably not a bad idea. If you are working out west, you can rent nice places out by High Park or Bloor West, that would be a short trip south to the Lakeshore, and which have a nice vibe.
posted by chunking express at 6:49 AM on September 24, 2007

The major advantage of Liberty Village is that the units are pretty much brand-new. I think High Park is a better 'hood, but the buildings there are quite a bit older. For a new townhouse close to downtown, Liberty Village is pretty cheap. That's the appeal, IMO. The new Dominion makes it pretty convienent as well. But there are lots of other developments in the area, like the many condos on King St or the bajillion units in CityPlace.

it's safe and has all the amenities a single person needs. As for cost, other have given estimates, but you'll need to shop around. As for rent or buy - how long are you planning to stay? If you don't know, rent.
posted by GuyZero at 7:57 AM on September 24, 2007

You won't have to go to Parkdale to go to the grocery store, there's a huge 24 hour Dominion right there, along with a brand new fancy gym, and some small businesses like a dry cleaner and video rental.

I looked at some of those condos as they were being built and looked at the model units afterwards and was not impressed with the quality of the building. My husband and I had thought about moving to that area when he was working in Mississaga becuase there's a Go train station there (exposition) and it's an easy car commute too. But the area feels kind of empty and weird to me, and besides there weren't any rentals available and we did not want to buy a condo there.

Maybe try and find a sublet so you can try out the area, or look at High Park/Roncessvalles.
posted by Melsky at 10:27 AM on September 24, 2007

Liberty village is trendy ($$$) and a bit isolated, which might be the worst of both worlds for someone just moving to Toronto. It's just outside of walking distance to downtown, so you're not getting all that TO action, and you're still faced with a medium commute to Mississauga.

Have you considered living closer to work, in Mississauga? Despite it's suburbia reputation, there are some small pockets that are really neat - like Port Credit that has it's own fairly complete shopping neighbourhood, should be a short drive (or bike ride or walk) to work, depending where in Mississauga, it's close to the QEW, and also a GO ride to Toronto when you need an urban fix.

We live in West Toronto, near the lake, where it's very quiet and close to water, which are the things we wanted.

I'd definitely rent the first few years, til you figure out where you want to live. That's what we did.
posted by Artful Codger at 4:31 PM on September 24, 2007

Liberty Village is the closest you can find to the suburbs in downtown Toronto. If that's your thing, then you'd probably like it.
posted by loiseau at 7:27 PM on September 24, 2007