Posted Oct 8, 2008, 2:37 PM
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It's Hammer Time
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Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Hamilton
Posts: 19,884
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Carmen's planning east--Mountain hotel
October 08, 2008
By Eric McGuinness
The Hamilton Spectator
Carmen’s Banquet Centre plans to open what it calls Hamilton’s first boutique hotel in the spring of 2010.
The 53-to-55-room, eight-storey building would rise at the rear of the 1,000-seat banquet centre in the East Mountain Industrial Park on Stone Church Road East at Anchor Road.
The 25-year-old centre, a popular wedding venue, has hosted fundraising events featuring former U.S. president Bill Clinton, former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, movie star Sophia Loren and former Israeli president and prime minister Shimon Peres.
City council’s economic development and planning committee is prepared to let the project proceed even though there won’t be enough parking. It also recommends giving Carmen’s — and any other new hotel outside the downtown core — a big break on development charges.
A rezoning bylaw for the development goes to the full city council for approval next Wednesday.
Former councillor Henry Merling, agent for the Mercanti family, which owns Carmen’s, said a feasibility study showed a need for lodging in the area, which is growing as a result of the Red Hill Valley Parkway opening.
“For Carmen’s, it’s a natural progression with all the action going on on the east Mountain. It would be a good thing for the city and certainly our business. With the Red Hill, clients are coming from Toronto and Mississauga, and the request is, ‘Do you have a hotel? Do you have a hotel?’”
Tim McCabe, Hamilton’s general manager of planning and economic development, told committee members Tuesday that the Courtyard by Marriott Hotel on Upper James Street was also allowed to pay development charges of $4.33 a square foot instead of the industrial rate of $17, but that the downtown core is exempt.
He said staff feel the lower rate outside the core is fair because hotels take in far less revenue than supermarkets and other big-box retail outlets.
Planning division director Paul Mallard said parking standards last revised in the early 1980s require one space for every six people in restaurants and other places of public assembly, a number that will be reviewed for the city’s new, comprehensive zoning bylaw.
Carmen’s now has 197 spaces, 13 more than required. Twenty-two will be lost to the hotel, leaving 175. A new stand-alone hotel would need another 53, but planners say the two uses can share parking on the site. Merling said offsite parking would be arranged for big events.
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