Construction is on schedule for Marriott International to open two new Vancouver hotels, including one with the city’s largest ballroom, at a development known as Parq Vancouver next January, Marriott Hotels of Canada president Don Cleary told a Vancouver Board of Trade luncheon January 11.
Cleary toured the site, which is connected to B.C. Place, earlier in the day along with Marriott International CEO Arne Sorenson.
The project is estimated to cost about $600 million and is being built by Parq Holdings, which is a joint venture between Paragon Development Ltd., Dundee Corp. (TSX:DC.A) and PBC VUR LP.
In keeping with its traditional business strategy, Marriott will not own the hotels and instead will simply do the managing. Marriott currently manages about 1,400 hotels worldwide but only owns five of them.
“I think it’s one of the most exciting hotels and entertainment projects in all of Canada, if not all of North America,” Cleary said.
Several things fuel that excitement.
Because the project contains a new Edgewater Casino, as well as four restaurants and a sky bar that Cleary described as having a park-like atmosphere, he thinks that the complex will be a magnet for Vancouver’s entertainment district and transform the way people view the downtown.
“We will have 60,000 square feet of meeting space including a ballroom that will be about 16,000 square feet,” he said.
He is also excited about the project being the first LEED gold certified hotel project in the country.
“Parq will also bring to Western Canada our first JW Marriott and our first Autograph hotel, which is our luxury collection of boutique and upscale hotels,” he said.
Parq is slated to have a total of 517 hotel rooms. Including eateries not in the Marriott hotels, eight restaurants are planned for the project.
