"It" Spot

The man who indirectly brought fame to club kids like Amanda Lepore and Heatherette’s Richie Rich, is opening a new 55,000 square-foot entertainment venue in downtown Toronto. Peter Gatien, an Ontario native, first opened nightclub Limelight in Florida in 1976 and opened other incarnations across the country – New York’s being the most notorious. If you’ve ever seen 2003’s movie Party Monster, you know the drug-riddled violent tale.
But that was clubland New York in the ’80s. This is Toronto’s CiRCA, which launches with an invite-only red carpet affair on Thursday. The venue promises to be “much more than a nightclub,” designed to showcase art, fashion, music and film, complete with state of the art screening room, catering kitchen, live concert stage and a room created by hipster toy company Kidrobot’s Paul Budnitz.