Nanaimo has a dream that won’t die. Despite repeated setbacks dating back more than a decade, the city is hoping that someone will build a hotel to complement its conference centre.
In its latest push, the city has hired CBRE Ltd. Canada to gather information in the hopes of publishing a request for proposals later this year for the 100 Gordon St. hotel site.
CBRE is to complete a market analysis of the Vancouver Island Conference Centre, which opened in 2008, and the adjacent hotel site. The $60,000 study will include a feasibility and market study of a hotel and how it might affect the conference centre. The report is due March 31.
Back in 2003, two plans for a conference centre and hotel were put on hold when public-private deals flopped. Subsequent attempts never got off the ground, either.
Most recently, a Chinese company that had planned to build a $50-million, 21-storey hotel with 240 rooms pulled out. Key to that plan was the company’s promise to bring in 70,000 tourists every year. That proposal failed after council refused to give the company a one-year extension. Now council is taking a fresh look at options.
When the 38,000-square-foot conference centre opened, its then operations manager said the goal was to be “thought of as the best conference centre in the country.”
But anticipated conferences have not materialized. And the hotel, which was expected to support the conference centre, has still to be built.
Victoria tourism consultant Frank Bourree said Nanaimo’s hotel occupancy rate was slightly over 60 per cent last year. To make a hotel financially viable, the market generally needs an occupancy rate of 70 per cent.
Hotels are costly to build and this project would likely require rates of $150 and $170 per room. A developer would have to take a long-term view on the project, Bourree said, adding he would not be surprised to see Chinese interest again.
