Last week we discussed the #10255 LEGO Creator Assembly Square, the “big” LEGO Modular Building for 2017, and today we will look at the #31065 LEGO Creator Park Street Townhouse, which is part of another series, often referred to as the “little brothers” of the LEGO Modular Buildings. 🙂
The smaller LEGO Creator buildings include the #31026 LEGO Creator Bike Shop & Café released in 2014, the #31036 LEGO Creator Toy & Grocery Shop released in 2015, the #31050 LEGO Creator Corner Deli released in 2016, and now the #31065 LEGO Creator Park Street Townhouse. This is clearly a series that LEGO fans love, and LEGO designers intend to continue as long as there is interest.
All of these LEGO Creator houses are 3-in-1 sets, meaning that they can be assembled in three different ways. So if you have three of the same set, you can create a really nice and cohesive street scene, as you can see it done with the #31065 LEGO Creator Park Street Townhouse in the picture below by JANGBRiCKS. And of course, the sets in the series can also be mixed and matched for all kinds of configurations to add to a LEGO City layout, or can be used to set up a similar but smaller street as the LEGO Modular Buildings.
In fact, because these smaller LEGO Creator buildings are still considered minifig size and are similar in style and colors as the LEGO Modular Buildings, they can be added to the same street with their big brothers, either as they are or with some modification. The small LEGO Creator buildings open up like a doll-house instead of the stacked design of the Modulars, but this is simple to rectify. They can also be made taller, to match the roofline of the larger buildings. In the picture below you can see the #31026 LEGO Creator Bike Shop & Café next to the #10243 LEGO Creator Parisian Restaurant, so you get an idea of the scale.
The #31026 LEGO Creator Bike Shop & Café was received enthusiastically by LEGO fans due to its nice design and sweet colors. It contained 1023 pieces with the original price of $90. The following years LEGO cut the piece-count and price by half, creating less substantial, but still excellent looking buildings. The #31036 LEGO Creator Toy & Grocery Shop is 466 pieces with a price of $40, and the #31050 LEGO Creator Corner Deli is 467 pieces with a price of $40. I believe that LEGO might have felt that the first building in the series was too close in piece-count and price to the LEGO Modular Buildings, and releasing smaller sets made more sense to appeal to a different customer base.
For 2017 we get the LEGO Creator Park Street Townhouse, which is 100 pieces more than the sets in the last couple of years, and $10 more expensive. I’m sure LEGO will eventually find the right contrast between these smaller sets, and their big brothers, while also keeping them compatible. Below is the official description.
Take a trip downtown with this Manhattan-inspired, three-level townhouse, featuring an authentic beige, black, white, brown, sand-green and dark-red color scheme, blue front door, large bay windows, basement windows, black railings, steps, balcony and an exterior stairway, plus a park area with a buildable bench, signpost and street lamp. Fold out the Park Street Townhouse to create a double facade and to access its detailed interior with flat-screen TV, sofa, fireplace, kitchen and a bedroom. Rebuild this 3-in-1 LEGO Creator model into a City Café or a Suburban Home with greenhouse. Includes two minifigures, plus a buildable dog and bird. Park Street Townhouse (folded out) measures over 7” (20cm) high, 9” (24cm) wide and 2” (7cm) deep. City Café measures over 4” (11cm) high,9” (24cm) wide and 3” (8cm) deep. Suburban Home measures over 6” (16cm) high, 6” (16cm) wide and 4” (12cm) deep. 566 pieces. Price: $49.99 – BUY HERE
As you can see, this set has a really nice color-scheme with sweet details both on the inside and the outside. It is also interesting to see how the same pieces are reused in the alternate models. Also, I haven’t mentioned this, but the dollhouse style opening of these buildings give them another look, so they are technically 6-in-1 buildings. In the video-player below I have included JANGBRiCKS review of this set, so you can see it better. And I have also added reviews of the previous three sets for your convenience.
In summary, these smaller LEGO Creator buildings are an excellent option if you don’t have the display-space or the fund to get the larger LEGO Modular Buildings. And the sets can also be used to add additional buildings to the Modulars. Plus, they each have three alternate buildings in two different layouts, so they are extremely versatile. You can get all of them, or multiples of one of them, or just one, and you will have plenty of fun. The #31050 LEGO Creator Corner Deli and the #31065 LEGO Creator Park Street Townhouse are both available under the LEGO Creator section of the Online LEGO Shop.
What do you think? How do you like the little brothers of the LEGO Modular Buildings? Do you have any of the sets? Which one do you like the most? And how do you like this year’s set? Feel free to share your thoughts and discuss in the comment section below! 😉
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I remember buying two discounted 31026 Bike Shops, so I could turn them into a proper modular. Something I still need to do 😉
I wasn’t impressed with the 31036 Toy Shop though, it looked too ‘barebone’ compared to its predecessor. Luckely the 31050 Corner Deli is a better set imo, which I also purchased. Now I’m looking forward to buying the 2017 offering in this series, but I’m waiting for a nice discount (which are often on these sets).
Yeah, a lot of people felt that the Toy Shop was too small. The Corner Deli however was received very well, and this year’s set is nice too. It is going to be around for a while, so there should be plenty of opportunities to get it. 🙂
I’m doubting, what to buy?
At least not the groccery, that’s for sure.
You can’t really go wrong with any of them. So it really comes down to personal taste and which one you are attracted to the most. I like both the Corner Deli and the Townhouse. 🙂
I’m a MOC maker, and fan of interesting colors, so I think I will take corner deli, the town house or the café.
Sounds like a good choice to me! 😀
Thanks!
I too love the creator sets. I also asnot impressed with grocery and tout shop. I may need two of this new one as I like two of the possible models you can build from it
I also forgot to mention the deli. It’s my favorite one and a fun build. Also a good unique idea.
Yeah, the Deli is very nice. The colors, the shape, the interiors – they are all good. 🙂
The low price of these sets definitely allows buying more than one. 🙂
My favorite is the suburban house build. I need to think of how to expand and get it to fit in modular settings. My favorite from this series is the Corner Deli. I end up getting two sets plus some additional pieces from bricklink to get a 32×32 build.
Getting two does make sense if you want to expand them. It would be most likely cheaper and easier than getting all the parts individually from BrickLink. These sets are very good parts-packs.
I built the “City Cafe” version with the cafe part reversed right to left, so the door and the plant are on the courtyard side, and the espresso machine and window are on the overhang site. This makes it a “coffee drive-through pick-up window”, which makes so much more sense that I am surprised LEGO didn’t design it that way in the first place.
That’s an awesome idea! Perhaps drive-throughs like that are not common in other places, so LEGO went with a more generic design? But yeah, I really like your idea. 😀