I've heard from a pretty good source that the Funnelator dream is dead. There won't be any more.

Plans for True North Square were shown to councillors at city hall yesterday. They include three towers, some office buildings a public plaza and a new four-star, 275 room hotel. 220 Carlton will be part of the project but won’t be the site of the hotel as originally planned. Anyone else have any details concerning this?

^^ SoPo Square had a hotel as part of their plan. I wonder if the plan to possibly put a higher end hotel from another developer at 220 Carlton was putting those plans in jeopardy. I also wonder if the original plan for 220 Carlton was part of the motivation behind True North negotiating the rights to develop that site without a hotel.

^ It certainly stands to reason that TN would do what it could to prevent a competitor from setting up shop across the street when its own development plan called for something similar.

It'll be interesting to see what kind of hotel, if any, gets built. Given that Longboat/TNSE now has a relationship with Germain Group, you would think that the next hotel would be another collaboration between the two for a Le Germain (basically the more upscale chain offered by Germain Group as compared to Alt, which is the budget-minded offering). However, would that cause a problem for the Convention Centre which seems oddly fixated on a major global chain like Starwood, Marriott or Hilton that offers a widely-used loyalty reward system... they've implied that this is key to a successful Convention Centre hotel... apparently people won't come to conventions here unless they can get SPG points?

I would be willing to wager that a Starwood brand hotel will be on the site. TN wants to corner the market for NHLPA stays as well. More than likely a Westin will be built on the site.

Yeah, good point... I seem to recall that this was mentioned as one of the big reasons that the ill-fated P&M hotel was slated to get what was it, Le Meridien branding? To be part of the SPG group. Apparently Winnipeg is one of if not the only NHL market where the players don't stay at a Starwood hotel?

I guess Westin makes sense, but I suppose it could be Sheraton too, those are probably the two most common downtown big-city Starwood brands. I thought it was odd that Asper was chasing Le Meridien for P&M when we didn't have a Westin or Sheraton first.

I have to admit I am a SPG point nerd myself so I can understand the appeal of taking this approach.

:pepper::dancing::banana::awesome::cucumber::leek:

A downtown hotel from Starwood would do well. Apart from the NHL business, over the years I've had several colleagues booked into the Inn at the Forks panic at the last minute at the thought of staying at a "no name" hotel and ask me if they should stay at the Fairmont because "at least it is a nice chain".

Personally, I have hopped a couple of times between the suburban Four Points properties to maintain status, even though the CMHR views at the Inn at the Forks are one of my favourites.

I believe Viking said that Starwood reps were quite happy at the thought of getting a downtown property.

Nice to here some relevent news on this proposal.

So there's a press conference to announce where Manitoba liquor and lotteries will locate their headquarters at 1130.

http://www.cbc.ca/m/news/canada/mani...ters-1.3248208

Not at True North. Will be a huge surprise but I think everyone will be happy. I think it is great.

Wow......way out I left field.

Good stuff. Looking forward to it!

Not in the Bay store then?

Not the Bay....start a new development thread.

.....not any of the major possibilities we thought of. CWB - no, IBM - no, Bay - no

Well damn, looks like I have to wait ten minutes!

Medical Arts Building

medical arts building, hmm.

Now that's just crazy.

It looks horrible.

Chipman and TNSE managements heads are probably exploding at this moment..I'm curious how the loss of this major anchor tenant will affect this project..