I am easily distracted by fine print.
In amongst our junk mail (do “No Junk Mail Please” signs work at all anymore?), was a flyer for “Living Shangri-La Toronto”.
The back of the flyer looked like a promotion for a ROM exhibit, which caught my eye, and led me to pull it out from the stack of cheap newsprint advertising $0.99 produce.
A quick look showed that it is advertising yet another one of the ‘luxury residences on the floors above a luxury hotel’ buildings that are popping up all over Toronto.
But instead of being captivated by the majestic shiny lifestyle the material is depicting, I can’t stop reading the fine print.
Like, for instance, the disclaimer beneath the floorplans:
“Renderings photos and sketches are representational and are not accurate.”
Are not accurate. Well that’s not exactly helpful then is it? “Honey! You know how we’re in the market for a luxury condo? Well you absolutely must come look at these inaccurate model suites!”*
For a $2.3 million “Private Estate”, as Living Shangri-La Toronto describes them, I’m looking for accuracy.
I was also distracted by the fine print on the “ROM Exhibit rip-off” back page. Which explains in some detail that “Living Shangri-La Toronto” is in no way affiliated with the “Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts”. Which is very interesting. Because Shangri-La hotels are ubiquitous, and with excellent reputation, as *the* luxury hotel chain throughout Asia-Pacific. So anyone who has been to Asia-Pacific, such as, for instance, international moneyed businesspeople in the market for a high-end luxury condo, are sure to associate this Shangri-La building, with all those other Shangri-La buildings. And those people would be mistaken. Shangri-La? More like… um… Fauxgri-La? (<-lame)
🙂
*people who buy “Private Estates” always use “must” as their modal verb.
I’m pretty sure that ‘Living Shangri-La Toronto’ is the residential component of the Shangri-La development (which is a mixed-use condo/hotel) located at University and Adelaide.
it is a Shangri-La, it’s just that Shangri-La Hotel is just the bottom 18 floors or so. The rest is sold by Westbank (the Vancouver based developer), the Hotel chain is licensed to operate but are not involved in selling the residential component.
I guess it was worth the distracting disclaimer for the developers to get to describe the residences as “Living Shangri-la” instead of “Living Westbank” (which is slightly less catchy).
p to the s — I can’t help but wonder if the concerned citizens ‘Chris’ and ‘Marc’ (who I don’t know btw) are ‘correcting’ my post because this lowly little personal blog has rather bizarrely ended up on the first page of a Google search for “Living Shangri-La Toronto”.
Let it go guys. Big picture. Go build your oh-so-necessary high income housing.