THUNDER BAY – Completion of the city’s long-awaited waterfront hotel is now targeted for the summer of 2018 with the developer insisting the project is finally proceeding full speed ahead.
At a Tuesday morning news conference, ReSolve Group president Gisele MacDonald announced above ground construction has begun on the Delta by Marriott Hotel and Conference Centre located within Prince Arthur’s Landing.
“It’s not the end but it’s definitely a start,” MacDonald told the assembled gathering inside Mariner’s Hall. “Most people would say ‘big deal.’ But given the history of this project and the adversity it’s faced, it’s significant we are here (Tuesday).”
Original completion timelines for the proposed four-star hotel date back to 2014, with signs posted outside the construction site having previously declared scheduled opening dates of spring 2016, 2017 and now 2018.
Reasons for the multiple delays include liens being filed against the property by a former contractor and the acquisition of the Delta brand by Marriott which included reviewing the hotel’s design. In addition, MacDonald said there has been extensive work done underground below the “elevation 100.”
MacDonald, who first became involved in the project about seven years ago, said there are a number of factors that make this announcement and this new deadline different than ones targeted in the past.
“The liens have been removed from the hotel, we have a builder that is on site and has been for the last two months,” MacDonald said. “The basement part of the hotel is, I would say, complete for us to be able to start above elevation 100.”
The hotel will feature 150 rooms, including 18 penthouse suites. As well, there will be 9,000 square-foot conference centre, 5,300 square-foot ballroom. Amenities include a full-service restaurant and lounge with an outside terrace overlooking Lake Superior along with a business centre and a fitness centre.
Coun. Iain Angus, chair of the city’s waterfront development committee, described the timelines announced Tuesday as being “very realistic” and said the schematics unveiled show a hotel with a “quality (that) will be something we have not experienced in this community.”
“It’s been a long time coming and we’ve all been frustrated by the delays the ReSolve Group experienced but we’re very pleased we’ve got (Tuesday’s) announcement,” Angus said. “There was a boom truck providing concrete as we came in, a really good sign, and I think we’ll see a lot of movement very quickly.”
MacDonald acknowledged there was a time about a year ago where for a moment she thought about giving up on the project.
“A project of this magnitude does flex but the owner themselves, they own the land and you move on with it. It never seems to affect anybody in our real world of development one way or the other,” MacDonald said.
“This just happens to be in a park, sold to us by the city. That’s what has caused all this. I don’t want to say this is all normal. This is the first time I’ve ever had a project that has been liened but the normality of projects going through the everyday deadline changes, ups and downs, you can only imagine in a hotel the code issues and the stringent guidelines there are for having that many people in one building.”
The developers have hired local company Burmet Northern Ltd. Contracting to build the hotel. Burmet was the contractor on the Hampton Inn hotel on Arthur Street which opened last September.
Sam Romeo, president of the firm, said the hiring of a local contractor allows for “millions of dollars to be put back in the local economy.”
“We’re at the concrete portion right now. We’ve done all the shafts and staircases,” Romeo said. “Within a week and a half we’ll have the ironworkers coming in to take the steel up and after that we’ll have people coming to do the superstructure. At that time, within a month or two months at the most, we plan to have about 100 people onsite with all the trades’ workers.”
Romeo added the plan is to have the exterior work done by winter.
