With a development permit officially submitted at the beginning of December, owners of the Canmore Hotel are launching straight into a capital fundraising campaign to help make restoration of the heritage building possible.
Calgary-based Heritage Property Corporation introduced the renovation and addition plans for the Canmore Hotel almost a year ago, and has worked with the Town of Canmore planning department to prepare the development application and Sustainability Screening Report (SSR) since.
Owner Neil Richardson said he hopes the $11 million project will break ground in April or May, but first they are looking for investors to become part of the business.
“We want to allow residents of the town and Albertans in general to participate, so we are doing a share issue,” Richardson said. “We want people to take pride in the project.”
While the company bought the hotel in 2006, the timing was not right to go forward with a major restoration and development project. Two years later, global economics changed drastically, which also meant the timing wasn’t right. But now, Heritage Property Corporation is ready to move forward with construction.
With the help of Canadian Ventures Inc. and former minister of culture Lindsay Blackett, the goal is to raise $1.6 million by the end of March to break ground soon after.
Blackett said the capital campaign was launched on Dec. 14 with an information session at the Hotel, and more are planned on Jan. 11, 18 and 25.
“We will be spending lots of time in Canmore talking to interested folks and trying to drum up support because we have to raise $1.6 million,” he said.
The minimum investment is $5,000 and goes up in increments of $1,000. Richardson said the goal is to make investment attainable for locals interested in being part of the project and business afterwards. Those who invest will receive an annual eight per cent dividend.
Plans for renovation of the historic building and a three-story addition between the hotel and CIBC remain relatively unchanged from last spring.
The addition, however, will require a variance as it is over the height limit in the district, but Richardson said the focus was to not add any density whatsoever onto the historic building as it would drastically alter its appearance.
The plans also call for official heritage designation with the province and the municipality, which would prevent the building from being demolished or drastically altered in the future.
“Right now the hotel … hasn’t been torn down purely because the owners, us for the last few years and all the owners in the past, chose not to do it,” Richardson said. “There is nothing that stops an owner from demolishing their property unless they are formally protected, so we feel it is important to not only have the designation at the provincial level, but also at the municipal level, because the town should really have a significant say in their historic buildings and this gives them that say.
“In theory, that means the economic value of the building might be lessened by the fact that we put a restriction on what a future owner can do, but we look at that and say sometimes it isn’t about getting the last nickel or dime out of a project, you can have a good economic return and a good social return as well.”
Heritage Property Corporation has rehabilitated five heritage buildings in Calgary, the Lougheed Building and the North-West Travellers building included. Richardson said the for-profit private group looks at both the economic and social return for its projects and the Canmore Hotel at 123 years old fits that concept.
Built in 1890 by Eugene de Rambouville, a French count, the Canmore Hotel is the oldest wooden hotel in Alberta and the province’s second-oldest operating hotel. Originally it had 26 rooms, but without indoor plumbing. Later renovations saw washrooms added to two rooms, and a shared washroom for the remaining rooms was installed.
“What we are able to do is reconfigure the room layout and still keep the historic corridor, but reconfigure the internal walls so we can get slightly bigger rooms with washrooms, but less of them,” Richardson said, adding it allows the historic appearance of the windows from the outside to remain the same. “We end up with 14 smaller rooms in the second flood of the historic building.”
The addition will include four bigger rooms on the second floor, eight more even larger on the third floor and retail space at the street level.
With 26 rooms total, albeit different sizes, the concept for the hotel operation is a boutique accommodation right in the downtown core.
“The goal is to have a higher-end boutique feel, but we very much don’t want to change the working man’s pub,” Richardson said. “While it technically has been a hotel, it has been the social and watering hole for the town for a number of years and we don’t want to lose that.”
The bar operation will be expanded in the rear to include the former liquor store retail space and the area underneath the patio, which will also remain in place.
Richardson said the goal is to keep the historic role of the bar intact, so that it remains a local place to drink, socialize and listen to live music without competing with other establishments in Canmore that offer a more upscale dining and lounge experience.
“The biggest challenge for us will be the interior fabric, because there are a number of photos of the building from the outside, so we can see how the windows were and what used to be there, but we have a significant lack of any photos of the interior,” he added.
There is space included in the front for the Miner’s statue to remain if the Canmore Museum and Geoscience Centre wants it to stay in its present location.
Richardson said the oldest photos of the hotel always show several steps and a bench – and so it will remain. The steps will be replaced with wood, as it was originally built that way, and the sign out front will be brought inside, as it is not historically accurate.
Blackett said growing up in Ontario he knew of many heritage buildings numbering hundreds of years old, but as minister of culture and touring Alberta, his eyes were widened to the fact there are few in this province. He said that is why working with Richardson’s company is so appealing.
“I was involved in some projects locally and across the province and I got to know the Heritage Property Corporation and their renovating and restoring heritage properties and making them functional buildings that people can use, so it is a win-win. It is not just for heritage lovers, (but for) people who believe in fiscal responsibility,” he said.
Blackett said the hotel is a “classic old joint” and in conversations with many locals he can tell there are many stories and with the restoration hopefully it will re-invigorate the building and all those stories will be told.
