Reliance announces plan to convert Vancouver office building to hotelon March 27, 2025 at 11:55 pm

Project would convert an office building at the corner of West Cordova and Thurlow streets into an 180-room hotel

Vancouver’s Reliance Properties and Montreal’s Germain Hotels have launched Vancouver’s latest hotel proposal – one that would see a 12-storey office building at 1111 West Hastings Street get converted into a 180-room boutique hotel.

The two companies would each own a 50-per-cent stake in the hotel with Germain managing it, Reliance Properties CEO Jon Stovell told BIV.

The site is zoned to allow hotel use as well as office, so no rezoning is needed.

“It would be just [needing] a minor development permit, just for any outside related work, and a building permit,” he said. “It’s very fast.”

He anticipates construction on the site, at the northwest corner of West Hastings and Thurlow streets, to start next year so Le Germain Hotel Vancouver can open in 2029.

The office building is about 70 per cent leased, Stovell said, and all the tenants have demolition or vacation clauses. The delay in starting reconstruction on the inside of the building is that Reliance must give tenants notice to move out, he added.

The shell of the building will be saved, Stovell added.

“Expanding into Vancouver is a major milestone for our company,” said Hugo Germain, vice-president, operations at Germain Hotels.

“Vancouver is a dynamic city with a bright future.”

Architecture firm LemayMichaud, which has offices in Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City, is designing the hotel.

Vancouver is set to be the 12th Canadian city in which Germain Hotels operates. The hotel would be the company’s 22nd property, and ninth hotel under the Le Germain Hotel banner.

Tourism advocates have long been encouraging businesses to build hotels and politicians to ensure permits and approvals are done quickly.

Destination Vancouver has long been advocating for new hotel capacity in Vancouver. It issued a report in March 2023 that said the region needs 10,000 more hotel rooms by 2030, in order to meet projected demand.

“It’s fantastic. This new project goes a long way to help address that 10,000-room shortage,” Destination Vancouver CEO Royce Chwin told BIV this afternoon.

‘That a well-respected and renowned hotel chain like Germain has landed a spot in Vancouver, I think, builds and inspires a lot of confidence for this market.”

The drive to have those additional hotel rooms in the city comes because Vancouver tends to have the most occupied and priciest hotels in the country.

BIV reported yesterday that Vancouver hotels’ occupancy levels and room rates led all major Canadian markets in February, for the third consecutive month, according to CoStar, a global provider of real estate data, analytics and news.

CoStar data shows Vancouver hotels were on average 71.5-per-cent occupied in February, with a $216.16 average daily room rate. That compares with Toronto’s 68.4-per-cent average hotel occupancy and $213.96 average daily room rate during the month.