Reason to Love Toronto: four new five-star hotels are about to make staycations super-luxe
Toronto is a great place to visit. Just ask the people who live nearby. Residents of Halton Region, a mere 30-minute drive down the QEW, made 153,000 overnight visits to the city in 2009, more than came from British Columbia, California, Texas or Illinois. The same goes for many of Toronto’s other bedroom communities: they could drive home after the show, but they prefer to stay the night. Tourism here is a giant house party, and our accommodations are getting a major upgrade with four new five-star hotels. Last February came the Ritz-Carlton on Wellington Street. January will mark the opening of the Trump Tower, a flamboyant structure at Bay and Adelaide whose 275-metre, 90-ton spire took 12 hours to lift into place (arguably Toronto’s greatest feat of high-rise engineering since the CN Tower). Asian Pacific–style opulence arrives next summer with the 65-storey Shangri-La on University Avenue. And our own luxury export to the world, Izzy Sharp’s Four Seasons, will finally get a hometown building worthy of its brand in summer 2012: two slender glass towers at Bay and Yorkville. The Manhattanization of our hotel industry is the result of an economy that continues to dodge the disasters befalling others. Together, the new hotels will provide 989 super-luxe rooms that are sure to be a hit with tourists. They may even resurrect Toronto in the eyes of Americans, whose impressions of us and willingness to visit are still tainted by the SARS crisis. But above all, they’ll make it more fun to splurge on ourselves.
. Asian Pacific–style opulence arrives next summer with the 65-storey Shangri-La on University Avenue. And our own luxury export to the world, Izzy Sharp’s Four Seasons, will finally get a hometown building worthy of its brand in summer 2012: two slender glass towers at Bay and Yorkville. The Manhattanization of our hotel industry is the result of an economy that continues to dodge the disasters befalling others. Together, the new hotels will provide 989 super-luxe rooms that are sure to be a hit with tourists. They may even resurrect Toronto in the eyes of Americans, whose impressions of us and willingness to visit are still tainted by the SARS crisis. But above all, they’ll make it more fun to splurge on ourselves.){kind=link}
how long until these are targeted by the Occupy movement with the planting of bedbugs?
…then the 99% may get a chance to bid on rooms on Priceline
What a stupid, unfunny ‘bed bugs’ comment… And SARS!? Really.. We are going to ‘try’ to blame that on the lack of tourism.
You didn’t even mention the best part of the Shangri-La and that is the presence of Momofuku!
This is excellent!
The creation of these properties means a lot of work for the construction industry and service industry of LIUNA members.
Building of these properties is great for a world-class city such as TORONTO. They create many jobs, not only in construction, but in the hospitality and tourism industries, etc. Maybe, some of the people who are part of Occupy Toronto will stop getting a free ride and actually apply for one of the many jobs that will happen as a result of these new buildings!
You might want to check your facts, and something tells me that it was an American/person who doesn’t understand the metric system that wrote this article.
The Trump Tower is approximately 276m tall TOTAL including the spire. Trying to add a 250 metre spire on top of the building would make it almost as tall as the CN Tower.
You couldn’t pay me to set foot in any Donald Trump building. I won’t give my business to Donald Trump or be associated with anything he is a part of.
A TRUMP TOWER, WOW! They should call Toronto the “me too city”. Nothing original ever comes out of here. We went to the Opera House a few weeks ago, the interior looked like it was designed by IKEA.
Awesome photograph!
Wow Scott, stupid comment. Trump owns hotels all around the world, and Toronto is just another world-class city to add to the hotel group. It has nothing about originality. The new BISHA hotel and residence is another 5 star that wasn’t mentioned, but it’s original. Happy now? And we have a lovely opera house.