Al Can Global Development Inc., of Selkirk, has exercised its option to buy property on Moak Crescent and plans to build a 69-room three-storey Extended Stay Hotel franchise, behind Minute Muffler, said Gary Ceppetelli, the city's director of planning and community development.
City council on Jan. 4 approved a 60-day extension to Al Can Global Development Inc.'s application to option the Moak Crescent property. That extension covered the period Dec. 19 to Feb. 17. Al Can Global Development Inc. exercised their option to purchase the property before the Feb. 17 deadline extension expired, Ceppetelli said.
Al Can Global Development Inc. was granted an initial 120-day extension for an application to option the property last Aug. 21. "The proponent requires the extension to complete negotiations and financing with a private partner," Ceppetelli wrote in a Dec. 30, 2009 memo to council and city manager Randy Patrick.
If all goes according to plan, Thompson may have two new hotels under construction and about 150 new hotel rooms on the way by spring.
The are currently about 450 hotels rooms in the city, probably averaging a 70 per cent occupancy rate, Keith MacDonald, president of the Thompson Chamber of Commerce and general manager of both the Burntwood Hotel and Thompson Inn, owned by Manfred Boehm of Winnipeg, said in January/
MacDonald said at about 70 per cent occupancy the eight hotels in Thompson, which besides the two he manages also include Days Inn, Meridian Hotel, Country Inn and Suites, Interior Inn, Mystery Lake Motor Hotel and Northern Inn & Steak House, are likely making money, but he doubts the local market can absorb 150 more new hotel rooms profitably.
When the city was developing its five per cent accommodation tax on hotel rooms in 2008 it estimated that on average there were 300 occupied rooms per night in Thompson at an average price of $85 per night.
Yellowknife developer Tony Chang is still planning to build an 80-unit Super 8 Motel, a commercial strip mall and apartment rental housing on Mystery Lake Road, across from City Hall.
Chang purchased some vacant land from the city on Mystery Lake Road and had some hold-ups with one small strip before ownership was transferred, but much of it he already owned through the eight Nickel Apartments buildings, at one time known as "The Pinks" and built in the early 1970s. Most of the key planning approvals for the Super 8 project have long been in place but there were longer than expected delays in registering the plan of subdivision with the province due to the property transfer issues.
Chang, through Orion Properties, owns 144 units in eight three-storey buildings. Built in the early 1970s, The Super 8 project will be years behind what was thought to be the original schedule when the project was first announced in November 2007 if construction begins this spring.
Chang is developing the Super 8 project through T.E. Holdings Ltd. He also owns the 120-unit Grey Wolf Bay Townhouses, which have undergone almost complete renovations in a project costing more than $4 million over the last two and a half years.
