The Hotel Grand Pacific is embarking on a major renovation, joining other large city centre hotels in freshening their properties.
Workers started two weeks ago to refurbish a major portion of the exterior, and replace windows and patio doors at the Grand Pacific on Belleville Street next to the legislature. The two-phase project is expected to cost $5 million, general manager Reid James said Monday.
The job will not cover the entire hotel, only the south and east towers.
First to be upgraded will be the south tower, facing Quebec Street, James said. About 70 rooms will be closed until mid-February, when about 40 will re-open for guests. Work is slated to finish on that portion of the hotel at the end of April, allowing the 300-room hotel to run as usual during tourist season.
Starting in September 2015 and through to the end of April 2016, exterior work will be completed on the east tower, James said.
A two-stage interior project on guest rooms and public spaces is also planned. Details are being developed, James said. “We are working with our designer right now to come up with a plan.”
The Grand Pacific and the Empress Hotel, with 477 guest rooms, are the two largest hotels in the city, each facing Victoria Harbour.
Empress owner Nat Bosa announced last month he’s spending $30 million to renovate the 106-year-old building.
That program will include window repairs, air-conditioning work, and new lighting and furniture. A few rooms will be amalgamated to make larger suites. Nothing will be changed that is historic, Bosa said.
That project follows a $500,000 renovation that turned the former Kipling’s restaurant in the Empress into a grand ballroom. In 1989, $45 million was invested on a major upgrade of the Empress, dubbed the Royal Restoration.
Other hotel improvement projects include the Delta Ocean Pointe Resort at Songhees, where $14 million was spent on a major overhaul two years ago. An exterior upgrade was also completed recently on the Coast Harbourside in James Bay.
Hotels play a major role in Greater Victoria’s tourism sector, which injects more than $1 billion annually into the local economy.
Tourism consultant Frank Bourree applauds the upgrading programs. “Many of the hotels here were starting to age. In order to be competitive they have to reinvest,” he said Monday.
A hotel needs a budget for capital replacement and improvements of about seven per cent of their annual gross revenue just to stay competitive, Bourree said.
“We’ve also seen the Coast Harbourside Hotel and Chateau Victoria go through this upgrading this year and of course, the Executive House is going through a big refit and conversion,” he said.
“I think we’ve got a great product here. It’s great reinvestment. Long term, it absolutely makes sense for them to do that. In addition, they can get their room rate up. We’ve been artificially low here for years.”
The average daily room rate climbed in October by $6.66 to $139.06, from $132.40 the same month in 2013, Bourree said in a recent tourism report.
