AndreaPalladio
Senior Member
Presumably, the first, given that the Festival and its new building are tools to enhance the viewing of images.
yyzer
Senior Member
LOL....good one....
seriously, "Lightbox" is just way too strange....they could have called it simply the Bell Festival Centre....
Prometheus The Supremo
►Member №41+⅜◄
it doesn't sound too bad when taking that into context.
if only they'd drop bell from the name. that's what makes it tacky. but wait, bell deals with sound. so, light box to view film and bell, a company that transmits sound.
i think i'm on to something here.
Prometheus The Supremo
►Member №41+⅜◄
H
Hydrogen
Guest
^Actually, I don't mind that at all.
Is there room for a darkened bar called the bat cave (get a bat-belfry thing happening)?
Maybe not.
Is there room for a darkened bar called the bat cave (get a bat-belfry thing happening)?
Maybe not.
Prometheus The Supremo
►Member №41+⅜◄
bat cave? that sounds like a euphemism for vagina. though it could be good for business.
samsonyuen
Active Member
Bell Tower's good, but maybe a bit generic. When I first heard it, it didn't really sound good to me. I'm getting the hang of it now though. Maybe Bell Phonebooth;?
Prometheus The Supremo
►Member №41+⅜◄
bell tower© 2007 prometheus the supremo.
Canuck
Active Member
I was indifferent at first, but the more I hear of it the more I like it.
See you at the Lightbox.
See you at the Lightbox.
What in hell's 'The Lightbox'?
Okay - that's not me asking - that's what I imagine the response to your invitation will generally be .
42
Okay - that's not me asking - that's what I imagine the response to your invitation will generally be .
42
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
It sounds like another clubland bar ... which I guess it is in a way.
Canuck
Active Member
Aug 22
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
From the Star:
URBAN EVOLUTION
A family plot
Movie director/producer Ivan Reitman finds both home and heritage in TIFF-based condo project
Sep 01, 2007 04:30 AM
Tracy Hanes
Toronto Star
Film director and producer Ivan Reitman recalls the day nearly 40 years ago when his dad took him and his twin sisters to the corner of King and John Sts. to show them his new investment.
Their father, Leslie, had just purchased Farb's car wash and the Reitman children were less than enthusiastic.
"It wasn't a very glamorous business and King and John at that time was not particularly exciting. It was really warehouses and rough industrial buildings," says Reitman, who went on to make a name for himself in Hollywood with movies such as Animal House, Meatballs, Ghostbusters, Disturbia and My Super Ex-Girlfriend.
"We were concerned that my father was going to have to work very hard as you have to get up at 5 a.m. and be there when you own a car wash ... but he felt the city was going to grow up around there."
Now Reitman is planning to make a home on the very site where the car wash stood.
At present, there's a massive hole in the ground as construction progresses on Festival Tower, 41 storeys of residential condominiums to sit atop the Bell Lightbox, the glitzy new five-storey home of the Toronto International Film Festival Group. By early 2010, the complex is scheduled to open and Reitman will have one of the penthouses as his Toronto pied-Ã -terre.
Since Reitman's boyhood, the once-grungy area of west downtown has evolved into a vibrant entertainment district. And the Festival Tower, which will be a focal point, aims to be a unique, world-renowned condo project.
As well as having access to five-star, hotel-type services – such as room service, laundry service, housekeeping and dog walking – residents will receive three-year memberships to the Bell Lightbox , which will entitle them to preferred pricing and early access to more than 100 events a year. Condo residents can also buy an exclusive Festival Experience Pass with a selection of three films suited to their lifestyle, private screenings with film world guests and have access to the festival's film programmers.
Condo suites will range from 487 square feet to 2,289 square feet, priced from the $300,000s to more than $2 million. There was a limited release of suites earlier this summer and a second, invitation-only limited release will be held during the Toronto International Film Festival for those who have previously registered (online at festivaltower.com).
Reitman is one of the project's developers, along with his sisters Agi Mandel and Susan Michaels and the Daniels Corp. While there were many opportunities to sell the property over the years, Reitman says it was important to keep it in the family.
"I remember my mother and father always wanted this to be a legacy that passed down to their children and grandchildren," he says. "We thought it was only right that we didn't take the big cashout and that we stay involved."
The site had a colourful history long before the Reitmans came on the scene. It was home to the Toronto General Hospital Reserve from 1819 to 1862. In 1847, many Irish immigrants suffering from cholera arrived there.
Some of the Irish people had been quarantined on an island in the St. Lawrence River, but when that location reached capacity and the Port of New York refused to admit them, they arrived in Toronto. Temporary buildings were erected on the hospital grounds to house them.
"A lot of amazing heroes emerged, including one doctor who could have chosen to have a lucrative practice, but chose to treat these people," says Tom Dutton, senior vice-president with the Daniels Corp. "He ended up succumbing to cholera himself.
"I think the hospital symbolized the spirit of Toronto, how the city takes in people who are down on their luck rather than turning its back on them," Dutton says. "We've always seen it as our responsibility to look after people."
During some archeological excavations prior to construction, Dutton says some ancient arrowheads were found, as well as one of the corners of the old hospital. In the century after the hospital closed, the property was also the site of row houses, two hotels, a parking lot, and then Farb's.
Leslie Reitman, who bought the car wash in 1968, turned the site into a parking lot in 1987.
"Dad worked the car wash for a long time and we finally convinced him to retire as it was pretty tough work for him and my mom (Clara)," Reitman says. "So he closed it and operated the site as a parking lot."
Reitman says his father considered selling the property upon retiring, but his son persuaded him to keep it.
"I told him, `Your dream is coming true – you've waited this long – it would be silly to sell it at this penultimate moment,'" says Reitman, who was a three-year-old in 1950, when his parents, concentration camp survivors, arrived in Canada from Slovakia (then part of Czechoslovakia.)
After Reitman's parents died, the three children operated the parking lot.
"Slowly the entertainment district was evolving at John St. at King and Queen," Reitman says. "It was becoming a very dynamic place in the city and we knew at one point we would have to develop it, as the land was not achieving its value."
About six years ago, Reitman heard that the Toronto International Film Festival Group had a long-term plan to build a permanent home for its activities, which run year-round – even though most people associate it only with the glittering September event that attracts many of the world's most famous actors, directors and producers to the city.
"We contacted various development groups to find a good partner, as we didn't want to just sell the land or donate it to TIFFG, we wanted to continue as a partner in the whole thing," says Reitman.
"We interviewed several very fine real estate developers and liked Daniels best," he says. "Jack Daniels (Daniels chair), ironically, had a relationship with the festival as one of its first donors. And Mitchell Cohen (Daniels president) seemed to have a real sense of a developer's responsibility to the community."
Daniels and the Reitmans agreed to develop the land together and submitted a plan to TIFFG in 2003 in response to a call for proposals.
Piers Handling, TIFFG's director and CEO, says the group got about 33 proposals and made a shortlist of six. TIFFG wanted a site close to a subway or streetcar line, close to services like restaurants, in an area where there would be plenty of pedestrian traffic and where the building would have ground-floor visibility.
Finding out that a big-name Hollywood director wanted to be a development partner and had the perfect site as well "was a complete, total surprise," says Handling. "It was a dream come true."
The Reitmans donated the land for the Lightbox and Daniels agreed to donate its management fee to the $196 million project, for which Bell is the major sponsor. Handling says the condominium's link to TIFFG will be an attractive incentive for buyers; the Lightbox will gain a built-in audience from the hundreds of residents who will live in the tower.
"TIFFG makes such a positive contribution to this city and it has also been a source of my success," Reitman says. "It was certainly an appropriate vehicle for this kind of gift."
Reitman helped choose the winning design for the tower by Bruce Kuwabara (of Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects) in a controlled architectural competition. Kuwabara will be able to admire the project from his office: his firm is across the street from the Festival Tower site.
"I wanted it to be a beautiful building, one that I wanted to live in," says Reitman. "There's always a continuous tension between keeping it elegant, keeping the living spaces of a quality and scale that would be enjoyable to live in ...
"I think it's a dynamic building and it doesn't feel like a cliché, like so many contemporary buildings do."
Dutton says Kuwabara had a strong vision from the start and, having spent most of his career working at this corner, was committed to it. "It's crisp, clean and has a real sense of optimism, life and exuberance about it."
Dutton adds that "it's pretty cool for us to come together with Ivan Reitman" and there will be a "symbiotic relationship between TIFFG and the condo tower." TIFFG has benefited from Daniels' experience in construction and setting budgets and there will economies of scale such as "we can buy concrete cheaper than they could have," Dutton says.
Reitman still attends meetings every four to six weeks with Festival Tower partners.
"I looked at it as being like an actual film project I was producing," he says. "They are both really long term, really expensive, complicated endeavours with moving parts that are always shifting. There's a pre-production, production and marketing phase. They break down quite similarly.
"My father was a great man and he was very right about this area. It's exciting to see what's going on around this neighbourhood," Reitman says.
"I haven't had my own home in Toronto since my parents passed away and this home will be very suitable and very fun. I'm very proud of this and my sisters are as well. We feel very fortunate to take the next step in our parents' foresight."
_______________________________________________
Timeline of the site/project:
http://www3.thestar.com/static/PDF/070901_condos_reitman.pdf
AoD
URBAN EVOLUTION
A family plot
Movie director/producer Ivan Reitman finds both home and heritage in TIFF-based condo project
Sep 01, 2007 04:30 AM
Tracy Hanes
Toronto Star
Film director and producer Ivan Reitman recalls the day nearly 40 years ago when his dad took him and his twin sisters to the corner of King and John Sts. to show them his new investment.
Their father, Leslie, had just purchased Farb's car wash and the Reitman children were less than enthusiastic.
"It wasn't a very glamorous business and King and John at that time was not particularly exciting. It was really warehouses and rough industrial buildings," says Reitman, who went on to make a name for himself in Hollywood with movies such as Animal House, Meatballs, Ghostbusters, Disturbia and My Super Ex-Girlfriend.
"We were concerned that my father was going to have to work very hard as you have to get up at 5 a.m. and be there when you own a car wash ... but he felt the city was going to grow up around there."
Now Reitman is planning to make a home on the very site where the car wash stood.
At present, there's a massive hole in the ground as construction progresses on Festival Tower, 41 storeys of residential condominiums to sit atop the Bell Lightbox, the glitzy new five-storey home of the Toronto International Film Festival Group. By early 2010, the complex is scheduled to open and Reitman will have one of the penthouses as his Toronto pied-Ã -terre.
Since Reitman's boyhood, the once-grungy area of west downtown has evolved into a vibrant entertainment district. And the Festival Tower, which will be a focal point, aims to be a unique, world-renowned condo project.
As well as having access to five-star, hotel-type services – such as room service, laundry service, housekeeping and dog walking – residents will receive three-year memberships to the Bell Lightbox , which will entitle them to preferred pricing and early access to more than 100 events a year. Condo residents can also buy an exclusive Festival Experience Pass with a selection of three films suited to their lifestyle, private screenings with film world guests and have access to the festival's film programmers.
Condo suites will range from 487 square feet to 2,289 square feet, priced from the $300,000s to more than $2 million. There was a limited release of suites earlier this summer and a second, invitation-only limited release will be held during the Toronto International Film Festival for those who have previously registered (online at festivaltower.com).
Reitman is one of the project's developers, along with his sisters Agi Mandel and Susan Michaels and the Daniels Corp. While there were many opportunities to sell the property over the years, Reitman says it was important to keep it in the family.
"I remember my mother and father always wanted this to be a legacy that passed down to their children and grandchildren," he says. "We thought it was only right that we didn't take the big cashout and that we stay involved."
The site had a colourful history long before the Reitmans came on the scene. It was home to the Toronto General Hospital Reserve from 1819 to 1862. In 1847, many Irish immigrants suffering from cholera arrived there.
Some of the Irish people had been quarantined on an island in the St. Lawrence River, but when that location reached capacity and the Port of New York refused to admit them, they arrived in Toronto. Temporary buildings were erected on the hospital grounds to house them.
"A lot of amazing heroes emerged, including one doctor who could have chosen to have a lucrative practice, but chose to treat these people," says Tom Dutton, senior vice-president with the Daniels Corp. "He ended up succumbing to cholera himself.
"I think the hospital symbolized the spirit of Toronto, how the city takes in people who are down on their luck rather than turning its back on them," Dutton says. "We've always seen it as our responsibility to look after people."
During some archeological excavations prior to construction, Dutton says some ancient arrowheads were found, as well as one of the corners of the old hospital. In the century after the hospital closed, the property was also the site of row houses, two hotels, a parking lot, and then Farb's.
Leslie Reitman, who bought the car wash in 1968, turned the site into a parking lot in 1987.
"Dad worked the car wash for a long time and we finally convinced him to retire as it was pretty tough work for him and my mom (Clara)," Reitman says. "So he closed it and operated the site as a parking lot."
Reitman says his father considered selling the property upon retiring, but his son persuaded him to keep it.
"I told him, `Your dream is coming true – you've waited this long – it would be silly to sell it at this penultimate moment,'" says Reitman, who was a three-year-old in 1950, when his parents, concentration camp survivors, arrived in Canada from Slovakia (then part of Czechoslovakia.)
After Reitman's parents died, the three children operated the parking lot.
"Slowly the entertainment district was evolving at John St. at King and Queen," Reitman says. "It was becoming a very dynamic place in the city and we knew at one point we would have to develop it, as the land was not achieving its value."
About six years ago, Reitman heard that the Toronto International Film Festival Group had a long-term plan to build a permanent home for its activities, which run year-round – even though most people associate it only with the glittering September event that attracts many of the world's most famous actors, directors and producers to the city.
"We contacted various development groups to find a good partner, as we didn't want to just sell the land or donate it to TIFFG, we wanted to continue as a partner in the whole thing," says Reitman.
"We interviewed several very fine real estate developers and liked Daniels best," he says. "Jack Daniels (Daniels chair), ironically, had a relationship with the festival as one of its first donors. And Mitchell Cohen (Daniels president) seemed to have a real sense of a developer's responsibility to the community."
Daniels and the Reitmans agreed to develop the land together and submitted a plan to TIFFG in 2003 in response to a call for proposals.
Piers Handling, TIFFG's director and CEO, says the group got about 33 proposals and made a shortlist of six. TIFFG wanted a site close to a subway or streetcar line, close to services like restaurants, in an area where there would be plenty of pedestrian traffic and where the building would have ground-floor visibility.
Finding out that a big-name Hollywood director wanted to be a development partner and had the perfect site as well "was a complete, total surprise," says Handling. "It was a dream come true."
The Reitmans donated the land for the Lightbox and Daniels agreed to donate its management fee to the $196 million project, for which Bell is the major sponsor. Handling says the condominium's link to TIFFG will be an attractive incentive for buyers; the Lightbox will gain a built-in audience from the hundreds of residents who will live in the tower.
"TIFFG makes such a positive contribution to this city and it has also been a source of my success," Reitman says. "It was certainly an appropriate vehicle for this kind of gift."
Reitman helped choose the winning design for the tower by Bruce Kuwabara (of Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects) in a controlled architectural competition. Kuwabara will be able to admire the project from his office: his firm is across the street from the Festival Tower site.
"I wanted it to be a beautiful building, one that I wanted to live in," says Reitman. "There's always a continuous tension between keeping it elegant, keeping the living spaces of a quality and scale that would be enjoyable to live in ...
"I think it's a dynamic building and it doesn't feel like a cliché, like so many contemporary buildings do."
Dutton says Kuwabara had a strong vision from the start and, having spent most of his career working at this corner, was committed to it. "It's crisp, clean and has a real sense of optimism, life and exuberance about it."
Dutton adds that "it's pretty cool for us to come together with Ivan Reitman" and there will be a "symbiotic relationship between TIFFG and the condo tower." TIFFG has benefited from Daniels' experience in construction and setting budgets and there will economies of scale such as "we can buy concrete cheaper than they could have," Dutton says.
Reitman still attends meetings every four to six weeks with Festival Tower partners.
"I looked at it as being like an actual film project I was producing," he says. "They are both really long term, really expensive, complicated endeavours with moving parts that are always shifting. There's a pre-production, production and marketing phase. They break down quite similarly.
"My father was a great man and he was very right about this area. It's exciting to see what's going on around this neighbourhood," Reitman says.
"I haven't had my own home in Toronto since my parents passed away and this home will be very suitable and very fun. I'm very proud of this and my sisters are as well. We feel very fortunate to take the next step in our parents' foresight."
_______________________________________________
Timeline of the site/project:
http://www3.thestar.com/static/PDF/070901_condos_reitman.pdf
AoD
spaced
Active Member
"Reitman helped choose the winning design for the tower by Bruce Kuwabara (of Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects) in a controlled architectural competition."
Argg, what a tease. I'd love to see the other proposals.
Argg, what a tease. I'd love to see the other proposals.