Review: LEGO Friends Heartlake City Apartments & Shops 42670

LEGO® Friends™ Heartlake City Apartments and Stores 42670 January 2025 New Release Review Brick Banter

Another street line of homes and shops for your Friends Modular Collection!

LEGO Friends continues for another year, and we’ve been slated with the whole first wave of 2025. Taking a look into the LEGO Friends Heartlake City Apartments and Shops, how does Friends hold up for 2025’s first wave?

Heartlake City Apartments and Shops

The LEGO Friends Heartlake City Apartments and Shops set is another streetscape in the ever expanding LEGO Friends sets. With a clear short-to-tall left-to-right design, we travel from a fountain and garden exterior upwards towards a beautiful vintage pink cottage styled building.

Beginning with the garden and outside details, we get a water fountain with a print less baby owl for the statue topper. We are treated to an outdoor dining settee as well, with a fun use of the eggshell piece underneath. There are also two trees adorned with dark red leaves, as well as moving right a number of dark red plants decorating the walls.

We also get to enjoy some sunflowers, new for 2025, and even a rooftop garden with lemons and flowers for bees. As we shift rightwards, we also see more of the street, giving ourselves an upward path and one that continues to a laundromat. We also get letterboxes for the pink and green houses respectively, as well as a well-placed fire hydrant.

Before shifting indoors, I’d like to focus on the extras we get for outside too. We get ourselves a ladder, working well for cat-stuck-in-the-tree scenarios, as well as a lemonade cart too! We also see that new pram here again, and some new roller blade moulds too!

Cake Shop

The Cake shop is the left most building and the smallest. That’s not to say it isn’t without character. LEGO have been really enjoying the new rose mould, and it’s used here in cake decoration! There is also a small register here, but otherwise not much else.

Laundromat

The laundromat also has two different play features all in the same space. Simply crank the wheel on the side and you’ll turn both washing machines with ease! Push the round ball above, and you’ll close the front roller door of the buisness when buisness is done! Both of these features are great and work really well. I do wish other features such as this were located on other parts of the model too. I do like the inclusion of the water spillage piece and the surfboard ironing board too!

Claymaker’s

Hidden away underneath the Green House and just before the stairway up, there is a small clay makers workshop. Within this small space we see cups, small cat moulds, and a moulding turnstile. There is even a space to put the models in the kiln. Great attention for detail. I do wonder what this building is doing here however…

Green House

Inside the Green house is the home of the Cat-Lover. He has three cats, with a torn up couch, fluffy rugs and platforms for his cats to boot. I like the amount of spots where the cats can attach, such as the armrests, to fill up the area. This character is also the first character to have a leg correction, and has a prosthetic right leg.

Pink House

The Pink House is the house of the parents of this set, the green haired male and the Autumn hairstyles woman. We get ourselves a traditional family home, with fridge, sink, over and cookery everywhere. We also get an upstairs bedroom with a large plant, cot and photos on the wall. Although a very traditional house, as far as LEGO Friends sets go, the house is a lot taller than than most other sets and rooms. As a dad with big hands, I appreciate this.

Verdict

I overall like this set. There is a lot to unpack here for $250 AUD, but there is a lot to like also. I don’t feel it quite justifies the price, and admittedly some things feel like they don’t belong. The clay makers space feels like an odd addition, and I do wish there were more trees or something on the outside of the building to breathe more life into the model. These are weird nitpicks, but I can’t help but feel like there is something missing, or the price is $50 too much.