Hotel site remains quiet while design changes are completed. Photo 250News

Prince George, B.C. – A full year has passed since work came to a halt on the hotel project next to the Prince George Public Library.  However, it appears some key issues have been, or are about to be resolved, allowing construction to resume.

Developer Rod McLeod of River City Hotel Development Inc. says “there’s been a number of changes and Marriott (Hotels) has bought out Delta, and that’s been a process that’s taken some time.”  McLeod says the deal was officially signed off a few weeks ago, although it had been in the works for some time.  He says that purchase means there will have to be some design changes on the hotel but those changes couldn’t be made until the Marriott-Delta deal was concluded.

McLeod says “we’re working on those design changes with Marriott now, but it’s going to take a little time.”

“Marriott’s got a different design and they’ve got different brands that they use so a lot of our decision is what brand do we go with and we’re working on design plans as we speak.”  He says that does not involve a totally new design, though.  “What we’ve got there fine, it’s just how high do we go, what brand do we use with Marriott and the size.”

Construction of the hotel came to a sudden halt in March 2014, although as McLeod says, there was some grading and backfilling that continued into June.  Asked why construction was halted McLeod says “we knew there were some changes coming here and one of the big things, we thought we would have a major announcement like Site C or LNG and those things all drive a feasibility report.  And so for a good part of it we were waiting for these announcements because the hotel may be bigger than what it is.”  “The   more economic announcements you get the higher we could go, so we’re planning a bigger hotel than what we had before.”

McLeod says “we’ve gone from 135 rooms to 154 rooms to 171 rooms in two years on feasibility studies but now that we’ve got Site C announced and the potential of the LNG, we need those official announcements to build a bigger hotel.”  He says “so that’s why we allowed for future and all of that in the foundation, we prepared for that.”  He says the number of floors to be included in the re-vamped design has not yet been determined.

River City Hotel Development Inc. had purchased two pieces of property for the project which originally included a hotel and condominium, coming in at about $35 million.  The Planning and Development General Manager with the City of Prince George, Ian Wells, says the largest piece, next to the library, was purchased from the City for $1.13 million.  He says the second, smaller piece, on the other side of 10^th Avenue was owned privately and was purchased for $835,000.  That vacant site had been zoned for hotel previously but had sat vacant for more than 30 years.

We asked McLeod whether the project now involves a hotel only or whether there are other pieces to it.  “Well, what’s planned there is the hotel is where it is now and on the other lot we could build another hotel or we could build some commercial and condos and we haven’t decided that yet.”  Asked whether the two buildings would be joined McLeod says “they could be attached by a P-15, which is just a walkway across.”

The hotel project, and particularly the fact it has been sitting idle for just over a year now, has resulted in numerous rumours throughout the city.  We asked McLeod to address the rumours and he was more than happy to oblige.

One suggestion was that the wrong grade of concrete was poured for the foundation.  McLeod responds “absolutely not, that is totally false.  I’ve got it signed off by the structural engineer, it is all in compliance, he signed off on it and the City has also signed off on it.”  McLeod provided documents which included the Compliance Assessment report from the structural engineer indicating that all inspections had been done and passed, as well as the final approval from the building inspector with the City of Prince George.

There have been suggestions that money is owed for work done up to the point construction went idle in early 2014.  McLeod says “all I can tell you is that last year, by the end of May, everybody, everything was paid.”  He says that had nothing to do with the developer.  “Contractor, sub-contractor issues were theirs they were not ours.  But I know that he cleared those all off.”

Asked if he knows why Delta wanted to disengage from the project McLeod says “Delta was owned by a very large BCIMC pension fund and I think they found that the hotel business was not something they wanted to be in.”  He says “it’s a good thing that Marriott bought out and we’re very happy with that because they’ve got over four thousand hotels to draw on their national reservation system, their worldwide system.  Delta only had 38 hotels but they’ve got over four thousand to draw from so it’s a good thing for us but of course the design and the finish that Marriott has is different from Delta.”

Because of the design modifications that need to be made plus other outstanding issues finalized McLeod can’t say precisely when construction crews will be back on the job.  He says “we have to get that right before we start so we’re working very hard with our architect and their architect to get this design where it should be.”  However he says he is optimistic work will be resuming this year.  “Oh yes, yes.”

Meantime, Prince George Mayor Lyn Hall has a number of questions he would like answered about the project.  He says “I’m going to start to have conversations with the developer and get they lay of the land and find out where the project is and where it’s going, and any kind of timelines with it.  Obviously I’m hoping that construction will start up again as quickly as possible.”

Mayor Hall says “our involvement with this was on a couple of fronts.  One is obviously around the zoning piece and the second was around the closure of that stretch of road.  Beyond that our involvement is we want to see that project completed.”

Hall says “for me the hotel site was important and an integral part of the accommodation piece for the (2015 Canada Winter) Games and we were looking forward to having that site there.  Really it’s a cornerstone for downtown development, so that particular location and the fact there was going to be a hotel there, and originally condos, was a real plus not just for Prince George but if you look at a specific area, for downtown.   And to have it sit there for a year, you know that project needs to be completed because in fact, it doesn’t look good.”

“So when we get together with the developer it’s about those things.”