At long last, it looks as though Nanaimo will get the downtown hotel it has been dreaming of, with council unanimously approving a development permit for a $34-million project.
PEG Development of Utah is buying a site from the City of Nanaimo for $750,000 to build a nine-storey hotel. The city’s hope is that it will help to foster tourism, add vitality to the core and attract more conventions to the adjacent Vancouver Island Conference Centre.
“We’ve got a lot of things happening here that are Nanaimo coming of age, if you will,” Mayor Bill McKay said Tuesday.
Another hotel, six storeys and 90 units, is planned for 15 Front St. Council also recently approved a project behind city hall, which could be a boutique hotel, McKay said.
Key to PEG’s project was winning a 10-year tax exemption for the 100 Gordon St. site, said Eric Peterson, of PEG.
The municipal tax break is estimated at $257,400 per year, a municipal staff report said.
Nanaimo has attempted to get a hotel built on this property since the early 2000s, but various proposals failed to go ahead.
PEG was the successful applicant after Nanaimo put out a request for proposals almost a year ago. The new hotel will be part of the Courtyard by Marriott brand.
Initial plans called for a 115-room, six-storey hotel. But a review of the local market prompted PEG to boost the height by three storeys and increase the number of rooms to 155.
Nanaimo’s terms for granting the tax exemption require a building permit to be taken out by Nov. 27, 2019, and the hotel to be open by Dec. 31, 2020. The hotel will create 30 full-time equivalent jobs, Peterson said.
Kevin Perry, PEG project manager for the hotel, told council at its Monday meeting that the design is intended to create a connection with the Conference Centre and to “just really activate that corner and make it quite a bit more vibrant than was initially anticipated.”
He expects the hotel will help drive Conference Centre business. That centre was built in 2008 and the plan had originally been for a hotel to go up at the same time to support it.
Coun. Gord Fuller said that while he is skeptical about the anticipated impact the hotel will have on the conference business, he is confident about Nanaimo and believes the hotel will be beneficial to the city.
