Goodbye Pompeii, hello hotels
March 14, 2008
Paul Wilson
The Hamilton Spectator
Downtown Dubai's got nothing on Hamilton. There's a tidal wave of towers coming to our core, new hotels on every corner.
A Hilton Homewood Suites, a Holiday Inn Express, two mystery hotels on the Board of Ed property, another on the Hamilton Motor Products used-car lot, a four-star Crowne Plaza emerging from the worn-out Ramada, a rebirth of the padlocked Royal Connaught.
Yes, the developers are dreaming overtime. But don't make your reservations yet.
Today, for a little perspective, we talk to three people.
The first, with no fanfare at all, is building his hotel right now.
The second really, really wants to breathe life into the carcass of the Connaught.
And the third is a man gone from Hamilton. But it was he, nearly 25 years ago, who saved the Connaught from the wreckers.
Azim Kassam and his family have been in the hotel business for years, first in Niagara Falls, then around the GTA.
Somebody from Days Inn told him Hamilton needed more hotel rooms, so Kassam came and took a look around.
He decided he would turn a former Ford dealership on Main East near Wellington into a 60-room hotel.
It would cost $5 million. He looked into financing. The usual sources weren't much help. "Questions were asked and eyebrows raised."
But he did find money at the federal government's Business Development Bank and got to work. He says his Days Inn will be welcoming guests by the end of May -- corporate clients, people attending sports tournaments or visiting family and friends.
Yes, he has seen the news of those other hotels. He hopes some actually get built. He thinks it will be good for everybody.
In 1990, somebody built a 150-room Journey's End on Catharine South. Its average occupancy dipped as low as 30 per cent. In five years, it had surrendered and was turned into a residence for Columbia College.
Kassam, however, believes he has got the timing right. "I think there's a good possibility of a turnaround ... And it's exciting news that new properties are coming. Let the games begin."
Two weeks ago, we ran a jumbo picture on the front page of the Royal Connaught, with a shiny 80-storey needle behind it, rising right to the heavens. Harry Stinson now advises us to forget that.
He explains he was pressed for time. The empty Royal Connaught was not for sale, but he offered $9.5 million for it anyway. And his $100,000 deposit was accepted.
"I was as surprised as anyone when the deal came together." He had to come up with an image fast. "I just took a picture of a building I was planning in Toronto and glued it on."
Do not, however, take this as a sign that he doesn't truly love this project. He wants to do the hotel. He wants to do the tower behind it, but the look will be much more traditional, more Hamilton.
Stinson, the maverick developer who pulled off many wins in Toronto before some big falls, has succeeded in drawing attention from the city he left behind.
Last Saturday's National Post carried a big spread called Letter From Hamilton. It showed a grimy picture of King East, the view people would see from the front door of the Hotel Harry.
"Coming to downtown Hamilton is like stumbling on Pompeii," the article said. "Everywhere are preserved stone temples, and nothing is going on."
Stinson didn't mind the coverage at all. "I went through exactly the same thing on Queen West in 1993. It was a complete wasteland. To get to our sales office (for the Candy Factory condos) you had to pass through an honour guard of pretty strange people."
He says the Connaught deal will close in the summer and people will be filling up his boutique hotel and condos by Christmas of next year.
There would be no Royal Connaught for Harry Stinson to dream about were it not for Barry Massey.
He arrived in Hamilton in the early 1980s to run the faded landmark. But a recession was making that hard. The place was going to come down. Work had started on a final 1984 New Year's Eve party, at which guests would be allowed to cart off some of their favourite furniture.
At the 11th hour, Massey found four investors to save the Connaught. But still it struggled.
Massey stayed until the end of the 1980s. Now he co-owns the successful StationPark All Suite Hotel in downtown London -- a city that has four times as many hotel rooms as Hamilton.
This city has two big problems, Massey says. First, it's too close to Toronto, which means many travellers choose to stay there, where the lights shine brighter.
Second, downtown Hamilton doesn't show well. The streets are too empty and some who do walk them are a little scary.
Massey knows about the long list of potential new hotels. "Hamilton probably has a 55 to 60 per cent occupancy now," he says. "That's not a healthy rate to have all that new product coming on at the same time. Where are the people going to come from?"
That said, he does wish Harry Stinson well. He thinks his approach is the right one.
"Every time I drive past the Connaught, it tears my heart out to see it closed," he says. "It's just dripping with heritage and memories."
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