|
Toronto hotels, hotel reviews, lodging guide |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
| | Last Updated: June 12,2008 12:08:16 pm |
  hompson girl, I'm stranded at the unique motel."
-The Tragically Hip
Mind not the epigraph. True, it's semi-relevant but, more importantly, it's stuck in my head and now I hope it's stuck in yours. (Sharing pain is fun - though, not for masochists.)
In the last few years, Toronto has seen a staggering rise in its number of per-capita pillows. Concordantly, pillow-mint consumption increasingly plagues dentistry. Do we have enough heads to accommodate our plethoric puffy bumps? No; but Thompson Hotels wants to import some more (picture a well-pressed Oliver Twist, made out of construction materials and hungry for travelers).
An über-swank boutique hotel chain, Thompson hopes to open its Toronto location - its first outside of the U.S. - in summer 2009. Thompson Toronto will join its six New York and California-based brethren in the luxury lodge market. Its older siblings boast celebrity pedigrees, critically lauded staff, and amenities aplenty. Since the likes of Prince, Lindsay and Mrs. Kidman have been making their way north of the border more often these days, it’s only natural that they should have an appropriate place to stay. The Thompson mission statement (aka manifesto) cloyingly promises, "Bohemian chic meets art house wise meets quiet yet radical elegance" before name-checking Basquiat, Godard, and the Royal Tenenbaums, and quoting Kerouac. Evidently, Thompson aims to amalgamate disparate cool from throughout the last 60 years; so far, the formula has worked.
Uniquely enticing features will include a Christopher-Columbus-infuriating rooftop infinity pool with a stunning eastward view of the skyline; amputee-discriminating-against fingerprint locks; and four (!) restaurants/bars. There will also be an outdoor skating rink. At a projected 102 rooms, the hotel should prove large enough for surreptitious encounters - even for the highly recognizable - yet intimate enough to retain the "boutique" label. I don’t know when a hotel with three hundred condos sitting on top of it became fit to be deemed a “boutique hotel,” but the label has stuck. Every room is set to be equipped with 42-inch plasma TV’s and floor-to-ceiling windows. There will also be private screening rooms which will come in especially handy during the Toronto International Film Festival.
Though Toronto's boutique hotel market has seen numerous additions as of late (most notably, Hazelton Hotel), the market isn't saturated. Furthermore, Thompson's anti-Yorkville location (on Wellington, near King and Bathurst) could draw haute streetcar fans and furtive, well-to-do McDonald's diners. Whether or not the Toronto market will support another Blackberry-buzzing, wealthy-wanderer, multi-faceted inn - regardless of its promised uniqueness - will wait to be determined until 2009. In the meantime, make sure not to lose your fingers and do your best to get the Hip out of your head. -S.T.
Location
550 Wellington Street West |
Phone212-204-5010 |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
MBO Toronto :: Hotels
