CampusOne — Hotel in Toronto

Off the bat, it should be said that this place is a business, and not a residence. While pretty much every tenant is a student, the apartment-styled building lacks the community that I would expect coming to a new university. I initially chose to live here because of the 4 months free that the contract offered; a special bonus as this was their inaugural year. I have been in the building since late august, and plan to stay the duration of this summer before moving out. Looking back these are my thoughts:

The building offers the nicest and most spacious living out of all residences offered at the University. In terms of comfort, the temperature is extremely difficult to control. My roommate and I had construction workers come into the room to fix it for us, as a work order put in would take too long. For reference, the temperature dropped down to 12 degrees (celsius) in the middle of winter, but has been nice through out the spring.

Our room has had the issue of smelling like weed the whole year. When I say smelled like it, I don't mean faint; after walking in the room you would think that someone had been in there before you smoking. When this smell first came around, we had a room inspection coming up, and when the head of the building's maintenance was informed, he shrugged it off and said the filters were connected to the outside of the building and nothing could be done about it.

The quality of meals greatly varies. Originally I had the option of staying at St. Mike's college on campus, before electing to choose Campus One. If I recall correctly, the meal plan there was $500 (and I think Chestnut gives you the option of $100, $200, and $300). Campus One's meal plan is a modest $6000 made in two payments of $3000 each. Some days food is great, I'll have no issue with it, and a $10-12 dinner/lunch seams worth it. Other days (especially when fish is served), the food is inedible. All tenants are given the option of spending their money before May 31st, or having it effectively taken away. I didn't have too much trouble getting all my money spent, but I still had a decent amount left over in the end.

If Campus One staff are reading this, I would like them to pay particular attention to this point. A short while (about 4 days) after the meal plan stopped, all stove tops in communal kitchens were closed off. They were deemed a fire hazard after 4 fire alarms went off in the short span of some 48 hours. Currently, Campus One is working alongside the Toronto Fire Department to solve the issue, and their interim solution is shutting off all burners in the communal kitchens. Now for tenants like me who don't have a kitchen in their room, I have no other way of using a stove, or oven (the stove tops and ovens are connected to the same power breaker which has been shut down). Consequently, using the stoves has gotten others warnings from security guards citing a possible fine up to $20,000. At this point I don't even know why I'm living here anymore. Technically I'm living here for free, but it's simply an inconvenience. It feels like a violation of my lease agreement, but I'm in no position to talk about that. I could rant on and on about this because frankly it's absurd that some of my food is now expiring due to the fact it can't been eaten. Now I did ask for reimbursement, which to me seems fair, but Campus One declined to offer any.

Miscellaneous:

Showers don't always provide hot water, especially in the mornings.

It is rare to see all 4 elevators in operation, making wait times long (walking up is literally not an option, as a one-sided door prohibits this).

Laundry had extensive issues, namely dryers not working for extended periods of time, forcing me to hang my close up all over my room.

Google is limiting my review length now, so I'll give some sort of a verdict:

Would I live here again? No. Just way too many issues for the steep price.

To the general student Campus One is 1 star quality, but for someone who is staying the summer and works a 3 minute walk away, it gets a...

I lived here for the 24-25 academic year, and have almost no good things to say about this building.

But to be fair, starting with the good: CampusOne is right by campus and Chinatown, all of my classes were less than 15 minutes walk apart from maybe going to OISE. Maintenance staff is incredibly friendly.

This basically concludes the list of good things.

Now, the negatives, note that I excluded any factors common to all dorms, like fire alarms or communal areas being dirty: They randomly entered our units to put a couch in during August with no prior notice. They inspected our units whilst our lease was still active with no prior notice apart from one stating they were entering units to replace HVAC filters. The cost exceeds any other UofT residence except for perhaps Oak House starting this year. Your room is not much larger than a room in any other residence. The elevators negate any benefit from being close to campus if you're on a high floor. Time after time, I've waited for 10+ minutes for an elevator. There was once an instagram page tracking the elevator status, but instead of fixing the elevators they went through the effort of taking it down. My vent randomly started spewing white dust out of nowhere and it took them three maintenance visits to fix. Barely functional AC that gets shut off for half the year. Want to order food? The security will verbally abuse your delivery drivers. Want to order a meal prep service like Factor for the summer which has no meal plan? Enjoy passive aggressive notes from the staff and them stating they refuse to accept it. I feel like the elevators deserve another point, there are four but oftentimes there was only one functional. My wall was rusty. Concrete wall, rusted upon moving in. The building is built with toothpicks and bubblegum, my window crank broke from normal use. The fire alarms are constantly beeping, because they replace the dead batteries with almost-dead batteries. The cafeteria closes earlier than most any other residence's. Amenities just don't work, I attempted to use amenities early into the year only for them to not work and eventually just gave up. The gaming lounge is just two couches and two nonfunctional TVs. Hot water and internet were inconsistent or entirely unavailable at times. Carpeted floor which is IMPOSSIBLE to feel clean on. Building management which struggles to actually fix the issues instead of bandaiding everything. For the last month, the laundry room ceiling had a massive leak and they just placed a bucket and pump.

There's hundreds upon hundreds more issues, and this doesn't even scratch the surface of how criminal it is for this residence to be charging $2,000+/mo and regularly increasing rent.

This is no student residence, this is a tenant trap. You sign a one year lease and you're stuck here for a year, in a building which is more akin to a youth hostel charging $20/night.

Fees, fees, fees, fees, fees. Want to pay rent? Hope you're a Canadian citizen with a Canadian bank account because otherwise you're paying $60 in fees to just pay your rent using their software instead of just charging it to your ACORN like any other residence.

The entire building feels designed to exploit students out of money. There is no excuse for calling this a student residence when it doesn't foster academic excellence, it fosters homesickness.

Save the time, and save the effort moving later. Find an apartment in Downtown Toronto for less or find a roommate and pay even less, the community you foster in this building is not worth the struggle of dealing with this building's management. Don't fall for the lipstick on the pig that is this building. It may look like the nicest residence, but that's only because you're only seeing what they want you to. All the pictures of white walls with air hockey tables and arcade machines is to distract from the concrete ceilings and rusted concrete walls.

"Where you want to live" is the opposite of the correct slogan for...

If you're considering CampusOne, read this carefully. I lived here for multiple years — not by choice:

Noise & Privacy: Co-shared units have zero sound insulation. You can hear roommates whisper and yawn due to shared vents and paper-thin walls. You can hear everything in hallways, and you can hear when your upstairs neighbor drops anything on the floor or scooches their chair.

Ventilation & Temperature Control: Communal floor kitchen smells spread throughout the floor (incl. rooms). Ventilation is poor. From October–May, you can’t control your room’s temperature: Heating is excessive (28–31°C in rooms, 34°C in common areas), A/C is disabled, windows barely open (awning windows), and portable A/C units aren’t allowed/don’t fit windows. (It is quite literally hell).

Elevators & Fire Alarms: Only 1–2 elevators (of 4) work during peak times. Waits can exceed 30 minutes. Fire alarms go off 1–2 times/month (always false), and you’ll be locked out of elevators for up to an hour. Higher floors = BRUTAL stair hikes.

Internet & Maintenance: Wi-Fi drops frequently, and YOU have to call the ISP (expect long waits and week-long repair delays). Other maintenance issues are poorly handled.

Laundry: Not in-suite. Machines are on a lower floor. Wash = $2.50, dry = $2 paid out of pocket. Machines are tiny, smell of mold, and contain hairballs and other gross remnants. Weekly laundry = ~$10+. Machines frequently don't work, or stop midway forcing you to pay for a new wash (the app is not reliable for refunds).

Inspections & Entry: Staff enter your room 1–2 times/month for “checks” you can’t refuse.

Pricing & Room Size: Private rooms in co-shared units (80 sq ft, no kitchen) are $1800-2000/month. Studios (250 sq ft, no kitchen) are $2300. You can’t choose room layout/size, and individual bedrooms are sometimes 25% smaller due to weird pop-outs despite paying in full. Leases are locked to a full 12 months. No subletting support.

Furniture: Comes with: tall & hard double bed, tiny desk with no storage or shelving, uncomfortably short chair w/ no armrests or lumbar support, small nightstand, VERY limited drawer and closet space. Rooms/studios have one window and minimal airflow. No personal furniture allowed, aside from a mini-fridge/clothes rack.

Dining Hall: Meal plan = $6000+ (plus $1500 mandatory summer plan even if you're not here). Hot food is priced by weight, everything else has a fixed price; food is hit or miss and despite the rotating menu, many menus are exhaustingly repeated. Hours are frustratingly inconvenient and unreliable. No food outside of hours. Summer dining offers ONLY breakfast w/fewer options & swipe-entry payment.

Amenities: Mostly unused by everyone (empty rooms, don’t be fooled). The gym is tiny and has old smelly equipment.

Location: At least it's near the STEM wing of campus (sorry arts students). Outside, you'll find a plethora of the homeless waiting to hold the door open for you at 7-eleven, or bombard you with aggressive incoherent speech as you cross Spadina. Oh yeah, there’s also a mental health & addiction rehab clinic directly across the street.

Bottom Line: For $2,300/month, you could rent a proper 450 sq ft studio nearby with a kitchen, in-suite laundry, and far fewer issues. CampusOne preys on international students unfamiliar with local housing. Once you factor in the mandatory meal plan (~$750/month vs. $200–$300 average grocery costs), laundry & other fees, and extra food expenses resulting from the dining hall’s poor hours, your real monthly cost exceeds $3,000.

Message to CampusOne/CCC: Stop paying for fake reviews and irrelevant community events. Fix the real issues. Lower your prices to match what you actually offer, especially since you provide housing to STUDENTS. P.S. I wrote this review WAY more charitably than I had...