Brandon Donnelly

Daily insights for city builders, delivered every morning at 6 AM ET. I’m Brandon Donnelly — a Toronto-based real estate developer and founder of Globizen. I’ve been writing here since 2013.

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Pink glow

Here’s a potentially hypothetical question.

If you were in the market for a 3-bedroom penthouse, and its 1,100 sf wraparound terrace with skyline views just so happened to have an enormous neon-like sign above it, would you consider this to be a feature or a bug?

The sign does turn off at 11PM, but before then, it creates this awesome/lovely pink glow on the terrace. My sense is that this will be fairly divisive. You’re either going to love it or you’re going to hate it. Which side are you on?

Let me know in the comment section below.

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8 responses to “Pink glow”

  1. doug pollard Avatar
    doug pollard

    like it at first grow to wish I could shut it off when I wanted

    Reply
  2. Lisa McGill Avatar
    Lisa McGill

    It is light trespass. A real issue in Toronto and most major cities. Alot of big cities have night sky bylaws so lighting has to be turned off. Houses with 20+ landscape lights…. have to turn them off at midnight. Only 1 light allowed. The terrace of this penthouse is basically unusable. Just think of a nice summer evening when you want to stay out ate and drink wine and listen to music. having this pink glow would be sickening. Deal breaker for sure.

    Reply
  3. victoriahomeproud Avatar
    victoriahomeproud

    I love it!

    Reply
  4. Harry Avatar
    Harry

    That’s a tricky one. It depends on the personality of any penthouse buyer, if they like to entertain it’s a cool feature, but maybe not every night. A compromise could be to only turn on the neon sign on Friday and Saturday evenings, or to move the neon sign to a part of the roof where it doesn’t bother anyone living below.

    Reply
  5. Rita Avatar
    Rita

    You’re on the right track – Stargazers use a red light to way-find on the field as it doesn’t affect their night vision like white light would. So pink is WAY better than white and neon WAY better than LED. Not a deal breaker for me! I hear the other complaints but with the softer, darker colour it still feels dark out and less intrusive (see my sciencey explanation above), instead bringing atmosphere and some adjacent life to the space – feels less ‘lonely’; I can picture myself eating /drinking out there with a little candlelight or lounging and watching a movie.

    Reply
  6. Michael David Spaziani Avatar
    Michael David Spaziani

    Tolerate it. What if one wore rose coloured glasses? Would that cancel the pink?

    Reply
  7. Michael Geller Avatar
    Michael Geller

    I like the idea of coloured lighting on buildings. But am curious whether this is deliberate feature or an unintended design consequence. Also, how large and expensive is the unit?

    While some people may say they like it, they probably can’t afford it. And those who can afford it won’t like it. As a developer I would not allow this to happen. But that’s assuming it’s a large and expensive unit. If it’s an 800 sq ft $1.5 M unit with a large terrace, it could be an attractive feature for a small market segment.

    Reply
  8. Tbone Avatar
    Tbone

    i don’t think the developer thought this out

    Reply

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