Metro Vancouver Hotel & Short Term Rental Market Discussion

[Glow Fun City]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Not really the greatest location for a hotel. Nice area but not particularly close to anything.

Good for touring acts playing at the Hollywood Theatre at least!

[jollyburger]

Vancouver developer goes all-in on office-to-hotel conversions

The Hastings building was purchased for $70 million in March 2025, the Victoria building for $14.66 million in 2019.

Stovell doesn’t have a cost for the conversion but thinks it could be $100 to $150 less per square foot than building from scratch. When you factor in the cost of buying the building, he thinks it will be comparable with new construction.

“Effectively the overall costs of land, the existing building, plus reno costs … aren’t materially less than building new,” he said.

One of the keys to being suitable for conversion is the footplate.

“The best type of hotel floor plate is like a train car or shoebox, with a hallway down the middle and rooms on each side,” he explains. “If you’re going to do a centre-core hotel, like (1111 West Hastings) is with the elevators and stairs in the middle, you don’t want it to be much bigger than about a 10,000-or-11,000-square-foot floor plate.

“Then your rooms are going to be the right size, and your hallways are going to be the right size.”

There will be restaurants and bars in both hotels.

“There’s quite a few local groups in Vancouver, the Tier 1 groups, pursuing us right now to try and be part of this project,” said Stovell.

Converting smaller “third-string” office buildings to hotel space also doesn’t preclude rezoning the site for a highrise in the future.

“It’s not the right time to rezone the property and build a big new building,” he said. “Maybe we’ll do that in 15 or 20 years, but it’s not the right time for that. So putting the buildings to good use in the meantime makes a lot of sense.”

https://vancouversun.com/business/real-e...operties-all-in-office-hotel-conversions