Medici

A tiny building with 15 tiny suites, but all nicely renovated during condo conversion in 2001 with balconies and sloping roofs built onto the original boxy rental building that dates from 1958. The smaller of these suites, at 355 square feet, were hard to sell when they were brand new, but since then small is almost "cool", or perhaps is all we can get and afford in popular Mission. 'No trouble selling them since then. The larger suites are still only 468 square feet, but that houses a bedroom and nice finishing, some with all-in-one in-suite laundry machines, although there's also coin-op laundry on site. 'Best part of the conversion was the added balconies and dug-out patios for ground-floor suites. Every suite has a large assigned locker in one of two secured clean ground-floor rooms, and a few of these lockers are very large indeed.

Parking is limited to five assigned outdoor stalls off the alley. Once each year names are drawn from a hat for those willing to pay the $200 (in 2009) parking fee to the condo corporation for the available on-site parking; others then get their free residential parking permit from the City to park on the street.

Exterior windows and doors at Medici are common property for maintenance and eventual replacement, although they were all new in 2001, so that will be a while. I have the Condo Plan on file.