Another Hotel for downtown St. John's

[MrChills]

Will try to find the information on the other Hotels, but, this is the fourth hotel proposal for downtown over the last couple of months, very exciting news for the downtown core and city in general. Two of the other Hotel proposals are within a couple blocks of this one.

http://www.downtownstjohns.com/news/...es/001337.html

[mmmatt]

With all this development why is there not St Johns development thread? It would be a much easier way to keep track of all this.

[Seely32]

There seems to be at least 3 or 4 on here from the rock, and I'm sure most of us would contribute someone should start one up.

[Architype]

Is the site at the East or West end of Harbour Drive? There is a large vacant site at the East end next to the waterfront.

In addition to this, there is still another 175 room hotel planned for downtown:

Hilton Embassy hotel bound for Duckworth Street
Langton Green project a step closer to reality with land expropriation

MOIRA BAIRD
The Telegram

A high-end hotel first proposed for downtown St. John's more than three years ago is a step closer to reality for a pair of developers.

The last piece of the land puzzle for St. John's-based Langton Green Development and Halifax-based Pacrim Hospitality Services will be completed once the city expropriates 19 Henry St.

The partners plan a four-storey, four-star Hilton Embassy Suites hotel for the corner of Duckworth and Bell streets.

The partners envision 175 suites, two levels of underground parking, a restaurant and possibly a street-front pub for the estimated $30-$35-million development.

"It's one of the last remaining vacant sites and it's currently under-used in thriving downtown St. John's.

"We want to add to the gentrification of the downtown area with this project."

http://www.thetelegram.com/index.cfm?sid=99378&sc=82

I don't know how they can cram that many rooms into four and five storey buildings. That's not the most efficient use of land, which is in short supply.

[Architype]

I think there is now a total of about 440 new hotel rooms in the 4 proposals for downtown. That's more than the equivalent of another Delta hotel, which has 403 rooms.

[MrChills]

Originally Posted by Architype

I think there is now a total of about 440 new hotel rooms in the 4 proposals for downtown. That's more than the equivalent of another Delta hotel, which has 403 rooms.

That's a major addition; how long do you think that will handle all the additional capacity needs for the city? I would really like to see some other proposals for the Battery Hotel, its a prime location, and the current hotel is disguisting, even more so now that they've painted half of it red!

[Architype]

Originally Posted by MrChills

That's a major addition; how long do you think that will handle all the additional capacity needs for the city? I would really like to see some other proposals for the Battery Hotel, its a prime location, and the current hotel is disguisting, even more so now that they've painted half of it red!

The Battery definitely needs to be replaced because it has the best view. For that location it is a bit shabby.

Some figures from 2006, which I think are still pretty current:

Since 2001 four new hotels have opened in the downtown. The number of hotel rooms, including the extension to the Delta Hotel, has increased by 23.5% for a total of1097 hotel rooms in the downtown.

http://www.downtownstjohns.com/quick-facts.html

Given that number, the new proposals represent about a 40% increase for downtown. I don't know much about the market, but the number of rooms does seem a bit low. I would guess there is about the same number in the rest of the city. Considering that one hotel in a place like Las Vegas can easily contain 3000 rooms, the addition of 440 rooms seems pretty reasonable. There was not much foresight when they tore down the historic Hotel Nfld in 1982, what a waste.

[Architype]

Just thought I would add this - A few stats I found which shows that the number of hotel rooms are not based on population, but also how popular a destination is - (looks like approximate figures):

Number of hotel rooms in Canadian Cities:
Toronto : 32,000
Vancouver : 24,200
Montreal : 23,000
Niagara Falls : 14,000
Edmonton : 12,000
Quebec City : 12,000
Calgary : 11,000
Ottawa : 9,000
Victoria : 7,200
Banff : 4,600
Saskatoon : 3,000
Regina : 3,000
Halifax : 2,600
Whistler : 2,400
Hamilton : 2,000
St. John's : 2,000
Saint John : 1,550
Fredericton : 1,500
Windsor : 1,500
Niagara-on-the-Lake : 1,400
Charlottetown : 1,300
Whitehorse : 1,000
Moncton : 800
Yellowknife : 620

Source:
http://meetings.canada.travel/ctc/mc...t.jsp?cat=1208

Comparing to Regina, St.John's could use a few rooms.

[mylesmalley]

I find those hotel numbers a bit suspect. I can only speak for Moncton, but 800 seems very low. There are two hotels here with around 300 rooms each (Delta Beausejour and Crowne Plaza), as well as at least a dozen with 50 or more.

32000 seems awfully low for a city like Toronto.
As well, even with the tourists there, it seems odd that Vancouver has 1000 more rooms than Montreal even though the city is half as big.

[Architype]

The figures may be incomplete, they probably don't count all the small ones.
Anyway, those were the only figures I could find, needs some research.

Edit: Those figures check out for Vancouver, as listed here for the metro area:
http://www.tourismvancouver.com/pdf/...lable_2007.pdf

How many hotel/motel rooms are in Las Vegas? Answer - 120,294

[mmmatt]

If fredericton has 1,500 hotel rooms Moncton has 2,000.

Just a few:

Delta - 310 (largest in NB)
Crowne Plaza - 192
Rodd - 100
Holiday Inn - 150
Chateau Moncton - 105
Future Inns - 130
Ramada - 115
Best Western - 100
Amsterdam Inns - 75
Country Inn and Suites - 90
Comfort Inn East - 100
Comfort Inn Magnetic Hill - 80
New Holiday Inn - 100

Total: 1647

those are a few, theres more, and we also have about 400 more U/C as we speak

[Architype]

So those stats are out the window, email the guy and tell him to update his site.
I thought it seemed low for Moncton, given it's hub location. I think the Halifax figure must be wrong too.

[mylesmalley]

I think Benjamin Disraelli put it best when he said "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

I try to think about that every time I read something with numbers.

And then I look at my StatsCan reference book, and I wonder..... why.....

[kirjtc2]

Came across a copy of the 2006 New Brunswick Tourist Travel Planner on my bookshelf tonight....there's a big exhaustive list of every hotel, motel, B&B, campground, etc in the province in the back with info about rooms, amenities, rates and such.

This is what I came up with for hotel and motel rooms:
Moncton area = 1909
Saint John area = 1354
Fredericton area = 996

Since this data is 2 years old there's probably been some changes since then, but there you go.

[mmmatt]

I know this is old but I just happened to check this site today...I had emailed them back in Jan and they said they were communicating with tourism agencies to get more accurate info...they updated the Moncton number to 3,000...that seems a bit more accurate than 800 haha

[Architype]

Those numbers must be all on the low side, and probably don't include B&B's and small establishments etc.

I wonder how many of those St. John's proposals are actually going ahead. I only know of one or possibly two for sure.