Posted Apr 3, 2008, 12:58 PM
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Join Date: May 2007
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Odd little opinion piece on this
Quote:
Days Inn is modest but it's ours
Richard Bercuson, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Thursday, April 03, 2008
First the bad news: Disney has opted not to build a beach resort hotel in Orléans near Petrie Island.
This shouldn't be construed as insulting. A spokesperson for the entertainment colossus promised it had nothing to do with alleged bird droppings in the water polluting a possible body-surfing adventure ride.
Sigh.
The good news is Days Inn has filled the vacuum. The chain is building a 70-room hotel at the corner of Tenth Line and St. Joseph Boulevard.
For those whose eastern jaunts have never gone beyond St. Laurent Mall, the location happens to be well within the cusp of the civilized world.
You may have learned recently, thanks to the sports facility name brouhaha, east Ottawans are excitable. Perhaps this is the natural outcome of an inferiority complex since, ordinarily, a hotel is a hotel. But no, it clearly isn't.
This will be the first one built in Orléans in 30 years, or so goes a much publicized boast. Why it's a boast is a good question. You'd think a community with a history of being ignored by industry and the rest of the city wouldn't want to share such a shortcoming.
Do Kanata residents ever crow about the bizarre parking lot design of Centrum Plaza? Of course not. The embarrassment is too much to bear. They shut up about it and suffer, quietly meandering through its convoluted roadways.
Let's face it. The new hotel won't exactly be luxurious nor particularly spacious. A local paper has already given it a three-star rating, probably consistent with most of the chain's inns. If the halls aren't clean or the breakfast bagels turn stale, the rating could dip a star.
But sometimes, you take what you can get. If Days Inn and its parent Wyndham Hotel Group company see a future in Orléans, who are we to argue? It's not as if there's been any hotel competition out that way.
The closest ones reach only as far east as Innes Road at the 417. Ottawa isn't a large place which makes them within 15 minutes of downtown. Perhaps no one recognized a need to head further out. Times and demographics have changed though.
This new venture makes one wonder how west Ottawans reacted when the Brookstreet Hotel broke ground a few years back, especially when they learned how ritzy it was to be. Mind you, there are a few distinctions between the Brookstreet and the Orléans hotel.
Most notable will be the lobby. Days Inn hotels don't really have lobbies. If you examine a photo of the Days Inn near Central Park in Manhattan, you'll notice that what they deem a lobby is really just a large wooden counter. The photo doesn't show newspaper boxes, but my bet is there are a couple inside, too.
The business centre picture features -- features! -- two computers and a printer. That's in the Big Apple. One hesitates to guess at what the Orléans hotel might offer.
The Brookstreet, however, is rated a grand five-star hotel for one significant reason. Its lobby can double as a parking lot. I was there recently, sharing horror stories at a hockey referees clinic. Had it not been for the front doors being slightly narrower than my VW, I might have parked in the lobby. Shouldn't a five-star establishment at least have a drive-in check-in?
Days Inn has no such pretension. As long as there's a decent breakfast nook and a bundle of Citizens, it doesn't matter.
This new place will have a banquet hall for as many as 175 people. Out west, around Brookstreet, hear the guffaws. It advertises 22,000 square feet of meeting rooms. That's roughly space for 5,500 people if everyone stands with their legs crossed.
Beats the stuffing out of the Days Inn. No, in Orléans, it's going to be all about quaint, homey, and closeness.
Then there's golf. The Brookstreet overlooks the sumptuous Marshes Golf Club. From there, your GPS loaded golf cart can transport you to the next tee, the 3rd level washrooms in Scotiabank Place, or, indeed, around Centrum Plaza.
Days Inn? No golf. No spa either. No multi-star dining or wine list to salivate over. If you see a golf cart in the parking lot, someone took a serious wrong turn at the Hammond course.
But in a section of the city starved for attention and facilities, the hotel will fill a void. As long as visiting kids hockey teams can play mini-hockey in the halls.
Richard Bercuson is an Ottawa teacher and writer.
© The Ottawa Citizen 2008
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There is definitely some sort of a sign back there!
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