Room renovations are among the plans for the two Sutton Place hotel properties Vancouver-based Northland Properties Corp. recently acquired for $198 million.
The deal, brokered by CB Richard Ellis Hotels, gives Northland the 561-room Sutton Place Hotel Vancouver and 313-room Sutton Place Hotel Edmonton. The Vancouver property accounted for the majority of the purchase price.
Northland president Tom Gagliardi, whose company owns the Sandman hotel chain and earlier this year bid for the Dallas Stars hockey team, said the Sutton Place acquisition was aimed at giving the company a foothold in the downtown Edmonton market, where it previously had no properties. The hotel in Edmonton would have become a Sandman Signature property.
But the properties were being sold as a portfolio deal and, on closer consideration, Northland jumped in. The chance to acquire a luxury property in downtown Vancouver doesn’t arise often, and being able to control the Sutton Place brand opened the door to growth.
“We thought, ‘Ah what the heck. Let’s get this done,’” Gagliardi said. “It gives us another tier that we can grow and perhaps create some value in the future.”
Plans call for the renovation of both properties, with makeovers planned for the restaurants at both hotels, renovations to the rooms and, in Vancouver, a significant upgrade to La Grande Residence, the extended-stay tower adjacent to the main hotel. Renovations to the Edmonton property will take precedence.
“Both are going to get pretty sizeable renovations in the next 12 months or so,” Gagliardi said, while downplaying any dramatic changes. “Being that they’re successful properties, we’re changing very little. It’ll be a seamless change, really.”
Vancouver Police Department officers and private security were woefully outmanned during the June 15 riots in downtown Vancouver, following the Canucks’ loss to the Boston Bruins. The reading of the Riot Act was clearer in the news reports than on the street, where persistent crowds numbering in the tens of thousands easily and repeatedly breached police lines.
While private citizens helped the sole security guard at Scotia Tower take down a rioter and prevent a newsbox being hurled against the tower’s ground-floor windows, dozens of other properties weren’t so lucky. Across the street, smoke billowed out of the Bay parkade and one businessman this columnist spoke with stood stunned, wondering if the police had a plan to address the mayhem.
“When a mob is like that, if the police department couldn’t do anything, you’re not going to get private security guards doing anything,” Paul LaBranche, executive vice-president of the Building Owners and Managers Association of BC, acknowledged. “When it’s out of control, it’s out of control. What’s important is how you minimize the damage, if possible.”
Some property managers assigned additional security for the night and ensured extra cleaning staff were available to clear debris as quickly as possible, LaBranche said, but this didn’t save dozens of properties on the downtown peninsula – commercial and residential alike – from damage.
Charles Gauthier, executive director of the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association, believes that his members’ steps to remove signage, furniture and other potential projectiles helped reduce damage to real estate. Dumpsters were also secured or removed from alleys.
However, he expects the riots will prompt property owners to board up their premises and take other measures in advance of major events such as this year’s Grey Cup festivities and even Canada Day celebrations.
“There will be a significant crowd in the downtown and I wouldn’t be surprised if some businesses took additional precautions to have additional security,” he said.
Some of the June 15 hooligans chanted against the HST, ads for which aired repeatedly during the Stanley Cup finals, but with the mail-in referendum now upon us it’s time for a stand to be taken via the democratic process.
Speaking to commercial real estate association NAIOP in place of Finance Minister Kevin Falcon on June 16, West Vancouver-Capilano MLA Ralph Sultan acknowledged the government hadn’t done a very good job of explaining and implementing the HST.
“The government botched it badly. It was dreadful,” he said, noting that even MLAs such as himself found it difficult to get good information from the finance department. This wasn’t reassuring, but also illuminates just how badly the tax was implemented.
“We rushed into this HST and we didn’t really figure out what was going to go up, what was going to stay the same,” he said. “The sheer compendium of exemptions on the PST were daunting, and we only got it half-right as we tried to sort it through.”
Sultan believes harmonizing sales taxes was a smart move but he knows it’s going to be a tough sell to consumers – something condo marketer Bob Rennie alluded to during his talk a month earlier to the Urban Development Institute.
Consumers need simple answers, and Rennie doesn’t believe those answers were available when the tax was implemented, or now, in the event voters reject the tax – something he considers possible.
“My bet is it’s going to fail and we’re going to be in for just a boatload of turmoil, and we’ve got to start getting the questions answered: What happens if it fails?” he told developers. “Where are you at with giving tax credits if you’ve been building under HST, and GST/PST is coming, because the consumer is going to need a very, very simple answer.”