Hotel Developments
 

Sheraton Hamilton latest target of hotel developers

March 06, 2008
Eric McGuinness
The Hamilton Spectator

The Sheraton Hamilton Hotel may soon be sold and refurbished -- the latest in a stunning series of plans to renovate or build hundreds of hotel rooms in the city.

An official of the steelworkers' union, which represents 130 employees of the downtown Sheraton, reports that Darko Vranich and his Burlington-based Vrancor Group have signed a letter of intent to buy the hotel.

A hospitality industry consultant says any buyer will have to invest millions to upgrade the 21-year-old property.

Downtown development director Ron Marini also revealed yesterday that the city has committed to giving Staybridge Suites owner John Bukovac tax incentives to build on the former Hamilton Motor Products used-car lot on the south side of Main Street West just west of Bay Street South.

That news comes as:

* The former Ramada Plaza is renovated to become a four-star Crowne Plaza this spring.

* Dethroned Toronto condo king Harry Stinson tries to convert the vacant Royal Connaught into a boutique hotel and apartments.

* A downtown car dealership is being turned into a Days Inn.

* Plans are floated to build five more hotels downtown in addition to one or two overlooking Highway 403 in west Hamilton and one near the 403-Linc interchange in Ancaster.

David Adames, executive director of Tourism Hamilton, sees it as part of a boom in hotel development that's swept across Ontario in recent years, noting that Hamilton has suffered from a shortage of quality hotel rooms for some time.

David Larone, a director of Toronto hospitality consulting firm PKF, attributes industry interest to the success of the city's two newest hotels, the Marriott Courtyard on Upper James Street and Staybridge Suites downtown.

He said Staybridge, developed by Vrancor, which has since sold its share, "has performed very well" and the Courtyard, developed by Oscar Kichi's Sahar Hospitality, "has done extremely well," so the interest in further investment downtown should be no surprise.

Larone also said, "Whoever would end up acquiring the Sheraton would certainly be looking to invest dollars and that's a good-news scenario."

Rumours of an impending Sheraton sale are rampant, and Jereme Lee, head of the Sheraton Hamilton unit of the United Steelworkers of America, Local 16506, said yesterday that employees were told early in January about Vrancor's letter of intent to buy the hotel.

He said the original closing date has passed, but he understands negotiations to conclude the deal are continuing.

Neither Vrancor nor Starwood Hotels, which owns the Sheraton, could be reached for comment yesterday.

Kichi, who aims to open the former Ramada Plaza as a Crowne Plaza in early May, with a new conference centre next door, said he made an unsuccessful bid for the Sheraton when it first was listed for sale, but turned down an invitation to try again late last year because he was making plans for one or two new hotels at the McMaster Innovation Park in west Hamilton.

Proposals for new downtown hotels:

* The owner of Staybridge Suites wants to build on the former Hamilton Motor Products used-car lot on the south side of Main Street West between Caroline and Bay.

* Vrancor plans a Hilton Homewood Suites on the northwest corner of Main and Bay streets.

* Two are included in the City of Hamilton's plan to redevelop the Education Centre site on the northeast corner of Main and Bay. The city won't identify the interested developers.

* A Holiday Inn Express at King and Queen streets is reportedly being considered by Vrancor.

I'd be more enthused about this if Vranich got going on the Hilton or any other of his projects for that matter.

More movement in local hotel business

Mar, 06 2008 - 8:00 AM

HAMILTON (AM900 CHML) - Yet another Hamilton hotel is making news today.

This time, there's word the Sheraton Hotel downtown may be sold and refurbished.

Burlington's Vrancor Group has signed a letter of intent to buy the hotel.

This comes amid word the city has committed tax incentives to build an Intercontinental Hotel beside the Bank of Montreal at Main and Bay.

Intercontinental Hotel is nice!

I'm not enthused. This guy is already sitting on tons of properties he could be developing. If he grabs one of our already functioning hotels theres a likely chance he could sit on it and let it go to shit.

I'm more than willing to be surprised, but I don't expect it.

I'll be happy to hear these annoucements once I see some solid work happening at ANY of these sites, primarily the HMP site... and by 'work' I don't mean demolition!

Word is that HMP is on track for groundbreaking after the thaw since it is more expensive (and sometimes not possible) to start under heavy snowfall ;-)

The city's stance is apparently to not piss them off by bitching about the parking lot before they even start development. I guess they are giving them the benefit of the doubt for now.

But I agree, all of this standstill makes me really nervous....

You think Darko would waste his money on purchasing the land, hiring an architect, create renderings, re-create renderings, develop a blueprint, pay for demolition to simply stop and forget building the Hilton Hotel?

I think not! When's the last time you heard of construction starting in the middle of winter?

I do not trust Vranich. He hasn't done much of anything downtown except to sit on a bunch of properties crying out for redevelopment. Sure he was involved with the Staybridge Suites, but that isn't really much of a hotel ...

That being said, the prospect of an Intercontinental certainly is exciting. Alongside the Crown Plaza, that makes two top tier hotel chains making a move to Hamilton (I don't count the Hilton, since it's just a suburban "Homewood Suites" and not a real city hotel).

Well according to Dave Phillips @ Environment Canada, we're expecting 6 more weeks of Winter Weather :s
So I guess that means the original March start-date will be pushed to mid-April?

Construction does start sometimes in the winter. It happens in Toronto with some condo projects, but you're right - it's more expensive and often not even possible when we've had as cold a winter as this.

Well, queen victoria school for one.

I'm not saying HMP won't be developed, I'm just saying it makes me nervous when they announce such grand plans and then tear the building down and it becomes parking within a week. I still have faith. But you ahve to admit there are a lot of stalled projects right now, and the vranichs('s'?) are behind more than a couple of them ;)

^ Did that require digging layers and layers of soil? If so didn't that start before the winter?

With the Engineering building at McMaster they started the digging before winter.

With the Intercontinental Hotel, I believe it's slated to have 240ish rooms. Which is quite a lot of hotel rooms. Probably a couple of storey.

No it was really weird... Winter came and I assumed that they would not start til spring and that the school would be a year late. Then all of a sudden after months of nothing, they were digging (sometime in december or maybe even january I can't remember). They only got the foundation poured in the last month or so.

Meanwhile they are still not going to reach the September target so they are slated to open now next January and a bunch of kids will switch schools halfway through the year. So in my opinion the extra cost of winter construction is going to end up a complete waste of time and money.

My prediction is they don't actually end up opening til september 2009.

I think they started construction so abruptly b/c the locals (incl. myself) were using this great wide open field as a perfectly smooth outdoor ice rink!

Then out of the blue (like you said), they dug & filled the foundation.

Crowne Plaza has some pics up supposedly of the Hamilton hotel.

Here is one of the lobby:

http://www.ichotelsgroup.com/hotelme..._LBBY_01_E.jpg

Can anyone confirm if this actually is the Hamilton location? If so this is a bit disappointing and quite below the standards of other Crowne Plazas. That drop ceiling looks cheap. However, it is still better than the Ramada I guess ...

The ceiling is the only thing there that looks cheap to me. The rest looks fine.

Hamilton Days Inn website is up, but only displays 'Under Construction' message currently.

http://www.hamiltondaysinn.com/index.html

I was hoping to see a rendering so we could get an idea of how the rotunda will be refinished...

Hamilton's Crowne Plaza website

http://www.ichotelsgroup.com/h/d/cp/...lsearchresults

Very nice, and I love how all 199 rooms will be non-smoking.