A condo developer has cancelled plans to build a tower that would replace Filmores
Does this mean Filmores can stay?
This year started with the unfortunate news that Filmores, the well-known strip club on Dundas Street East, would be ousted from its location after 45 years to make way for a condo development. The announcement came less than two months after the Imperial Pub, another Toronto institution just down the street, closed for a similar reason. Filmores was set to have its last night of operation on January 31.
Well, the strip club gods heard the prayers of Filmores patrons and employees alike, and it was reported today that the proposed 48-storey condo tower has been cancelled.
Menkes Developments confirmed to the Toronto Star that the company will not move forward with the 520-unit plan due to insufficient sales and that buyers who paid deposits are being refunded with interest. “This decision was not made lightly, but we believe it is in the best interests of all parties not to unrealistically prolong matters in the face of continuing market uncertainty,” Jared Menkes, the company’s president of high-rise residential, told the Star.
The developer will instead pivot instead to purpose-built rentals. It’s still unclear whether or when Filmores will close given this plot twist, though previous reports noted that the owners were searching for a new location.
Related: “Condos sitting cold is the new norm.” Three agents on why they sold at a discount
Carly Lewis is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Wired, Interview Magazine, Pitchfork, Elle, and Maclean’s, where she is a contributing editor. Her work has been recognized by the National Magazine Awards and the Digital Publishing Awards. She reports on city life, culture—including what people do online—politics, art and crime. She received the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award for “The Murder of Ashley Wadsworth,” an investigative feature about a Canadian teenager who was killed by a man she met on social media, published by Maclean’s.
