5 February 2008
18-storey hotel gets green light
Posted by Ryan Coffey under: Nanaimo Profile and Events .
Robert Barron , Daily News
Published: Saturday, February 02, 2008
The Intertech Construction Group will build the 18-storey, 170-room hotel component of the Port of Nanaimo Centre project.
Millennium and Suro Development Company, the development companies that are the City of Nanaimo’s private partners in the PNC project, announced Friday that Intertech, the general-contractor for the public components of the PNC scheduled to be completed this spring, will build the $50-million hotel, starting in May.
The privately-owned hotel component of the PNC became controversial after Suro/Millennium missed a number of deadlines to acquire funding for the project, originally planned to be a 37-storey hotel with condos on the top floors. The developers secured funding for the hotel in October with the caveat that a general contractor be signed on by the end of January. Construction should finish in 2010.
Jeet Manhas, chairman of the PNC advisory committee, said while the Marriott chain was originally expected to run the hotel, there are now no guarantees who the operators will be.
“The hotel will be built and operated by our private partners. It will be up to them who runs it,” he said.