Peter Gatien was, at one time, the undisputed king of nightlife in New York City. After being driven out of the United States by a government crackdown on nightclubs led by former New York mayor and current American presidential candidate, Rudy Giuliani, Gatien made Toronto his home, and is now opening CiRCA in the former Playdium/Lucid location on John Street.

Gatien calls the 55,000 square foot CiRCA an "entertainment complex," which hardly begins to describe it: with a green room, a recording studio, rotating art installations, a film screening theatre, interactive LED-illuminated tables, a Kidrobot toy and clothing bar, and four open-floor stories of nightclub with painstakingly themed nooks, CiRCA stands as a unique hybrid between a club and a centre for the arts. After a perplexingly long legal battle against a largely absentee opposition, CiRCA has won its liquor license and is finally opening on October 4th.