The plush leather seats with built-in side tables in the balcony provide the ideal vantage point to appreciate the room’s bold black, grey and gold interior design, or whatever happens to be projected on the screen (or performed on the stage). A gold-and-black concessions stand, its striped pattern inspired by old TTC streetcars, commands attention as soon as you walk through the building’s doors. However long it took, and for however much money it cost, the results are right there in every detail and corner of the new Paradise. “It’s been a challenge, but we’re almost there.” “When you’re dealing with any old building, especially one heritage-designated, you’re going to find things that were never on a blueprint, or a shaft you never thought was there,” says Thorek. But I think we can make it an interesting hub for the community.” “Will it be a great money maker? Probably not. We can capture every area of entertainment that’s available out there,” says Tawse, who co-founded mortgage company First National. “The way we designed and outfitted it was to make it a very flexible space. Film may have been the driving force behind The Paradise’s rebirth, but it will not – it cannot – remain its sole focus. And already plans are underway for “Paradise 2.0,” which will transform the empty space next to the building into a bakery and café. Firms ERA Architects, Solid Design Creative and Ware Malcomb have upgraded the 1937 building’s original Art Deco aesthetics to a style that is both elevated and comforting.Ī first-floor Italian restaurant and second-floor bar, both to open in 2020, are aimed at serving as neighbourhood anchors. (There are 182 seats on the ground level, the first five rows of which retract into the floor to open up space for live events, and 22 VIP seats in the balcony). What was once a 643-seat venue dedicated solely to the moving image will now be a more intimate multipurpose arts space for film, music, comedy and live talks. If I want to take in a film and I want it to stay with me, to have the purest experience of it, then I go to the cinema,” says Smith, who leads a team booking everything from second-run films to retrospective series (“7 from ’37,” featuring movies released the same year the Paradise opened its doors) to Netflix titles looking for big-screen boosts ( Marriage Story, The Irishman). “The shared experience of seeing a film not in your living room, but with people who you don’t know, there’s something still special about that. Jessica Smith, programming director for The Paradise, is more optimistic about the state of cinema-going. If a condo developer sees potential there and puts a big cheque in your face, I can’t blame someone for accepting that.” I don’t want to name cinemas, but there are a few here that if you walk in on a Thursday night, and it’s only 30-per-cent occupancy, that’s scary. So if you don’t own the building, it’s going to be a struggle. Cinemas are big buildings that traditionally don’t make a lot of revenue. “I don’t blame the developers – it’s market forces. This was not viable without a funder like ,” says David Thorek, The Paradise’s director of operations. Formerly a repertory cinema that was part of the now-defunct Festival chain of cinemas – and before that a home for first-run mainstream movies, Italian film, and then pornography – The Paradise was bought by financier Moray Tawse in 2013, and has since undergone a lengthy revamp.
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