Quote:
Originally Posted by csbvan
Yeah, retain the facades and give this area a massive face lift next to the new hospital. Glad there's a hotel portion. Hope it goes through.
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I'm pretty sure that the Cobalt, and its neighbour, will be demolished for any new development. Structurally the hotel is in rough shape, and architecturally it's nothing special, and propping up the façade to incorporate it into a new building would cost far more than it's worth.
RHI, the group who bought it, operate a lot of hotels, mostly in the budget or mid market, which is what the city is most lacking. They also develop housing in places like Surry and Burquitlam, but mid rise rather than towers, so this is ambitious.
It will be interesting to see what their idea is for replacing the SRO rooms. They could put social housing in the podium, like Landmark, or they could see if Council would accept a payment instead like the developer of Curv is currently pursuing.