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| Proposed "Film Set" Neighbourhood |
Would you ever consider living in an actual permanent film set? Sounds interesting and exciting right? It would probably not be feasible, let alone desirable for the long term however. What if though, the film set was a fully mixed-use vibrant neighbourhood with cafes, restaurants, grocery stores, and was located right downtown on the waterfront with promised LRT access? What if it was next door to the future site of the Pan Am games amenities and sport facility, and the neighbourhood would be a very faithful replica of famous neighbourhoods in New York, Chicago, and London? If you are even slightly interested, or at least intrigued, welcome to the future of approximately 13.5-hectares of Toronto’s waterfront revitalization. On November 14th Pinewood Studios Toronto in partnership with a group of investors including Build Toronto (which is completely city owned) announced its “go-ahead plan, it’s not a dream plan” vision to build a fully realized complete neighbourhood including condominiums, low rises, a hotel, a public plaza, and a mixture of retail, all of which would be in various parts modeled after famous international locations and used as film sets throughout the year, while simultaneously being operational as lived-in city neighbourhoods. Ambitious, daring, and perhaps genius - or a fiasco in waiting? If such a lifestyle interests you, the apartments will apparently be priced at approximately $500/sq. ft, which is a hundred dollars less than the current average of $600/sq. ft for waterfront condos in Toronto. The catch is, of course, since the whole area including the streets are privately owned, Pinewood studios would be able to close down the streets to film whenever and as long as they wanted without permission.
