Downtown Ottawa hotel set to become private student residence
Carys Mills, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: June 5, 2014, Last Updated: June 5, 2014 4:50 PM EDT
A downtown hotel minutes away from the University of Ottawa is set to be sold to a private student residence company this summer and reopen within a year.
Campus Suites Inc. is adding the Holiday Inn at 111 Cooper St. to its list of projects that already includes properties primarily in the U.S., as well as in Montreal and Toronto. Its Ottawa deal is set to close in July, Campus Suites president Henry Morton said Thursday, and then work will begin on the property to have it open by early summer 2015.
“We want to do this properly,” Morton said. “We want to upgrade the hotel to something that we’re all very proud of, and in order to do that it takes time and a tremendous investment.”
He declined to disclose the cost of the project near Queen Elizabeth Drive, just west of U of O. Staff at the Holiday Inn directed questions to general manager Peter Wilson, who did not respond for comment this week.
Morton, who was in Ottawa this week, said he has been following student housing developments here.
He’s well aware that in March city council shut down plans to build a new private residence at Laurier Avenue and Friel Street, where residents were opposed to more student housing. That matter is being appealed to the Ontario Municipal Board, which has the power to overturn council decisions, and a hearing has been scheduled for October.
Morton said his company’s plans, at the roughly 220-unit building, are different.
“The first thing I have to say is that we’re not, this is not, Sandy Hill,” he said. “This is a community that already has a significant number of long-term apartments, hotel stays, as well as a number of apartments as well. It’s not a new development. It’s not that we’re actually adding any traffic to the area.”
If anything, he said, the development will reduce traffic and provide a better option for students living in rooming houses.
“We actually believe that with proper management and well-thought-out facilities that we’ll actually help to improve the neighbourhood,” he said.
He said there will be 24-hour on-site professional and student staff, programming, laundry, common areas and a third-party coffee shop. As well, he said, the residents probably won’t all be students, since other people might be interested in long-term stays.
The University of Ottawa itself has been trying to find more first-year residence spaces to keep pace with its growing campus in Sandy Hill. The university has recently been searching for 1,200 new residence spaces, but two new residences announced this year, one on Henderson Avenue and the other involving the takeover of a former Friel Street seniors’ residence, have reduced its wish list.
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