ville-marie Hôtel Mount Stephen - 12 étages

[monctezuma]

Merci à MtlSkyline d'avoir rapporté la nouvelle sur SSP :

 

Hotel Mount Stephen?

December 22, 2011. 3:52 pm • Section: Real Deal

ALLISON LAMPERT, The Gazette

 

The elaborate mahogany doors of Montreal’s historic Mount Stephen Club are to close on Dec. 23, as they do each year during the holiday season.

 

The big question, is what will happen to the 85-year-old former home of Lord Mount Stephen – the Scottish-born founding president of the Canadian Pacific Railway – in 2012? For owners, the privately-held Tidan Group, the message is clear: the Mount Stephen Club will shut indefinitely.

 

Long term, however, the plan isn’t clear.

 

Members of the Confédération des syndicats nationaux, which represents the club’s 70 workers, have denounced the closing as union-busting. They asked an administrative tribunal this week to force Tidan to re-open the club next month, and are awaiting a decision by January 5.

 

Whatever the tribunal judge decides, new possible uses for the Victorian building with the 24-karat gold doorknobs are already being floated.

 

Peter Morentzos, the brain behind the Queue de Cheval, MBCo (Montreal Bread Company), Moe’s and Trinity, says he’d consider the Mount Stephen Club as a possible new location for the high end Q steakhouse.

 

At the restaurant’s recent “Food Porn” event – a flamboyant soirée that rewards its supporters – Morentzos told me there is a “70 per cent chance” the Queue de Cheval might have to switch locations to make room for a large residential and commercial project by businessman James Essaris on René Levésque Blvd. between de la Montagne and Drummond Sts.

 

The Mount Stephen Club is one possibility, but unlikely given what I hear is the Tidan Group’s real interest in the site. While the structure of the historic building cannot be changed, real estate sources tell me the Tidans are considering plans to incorporate the building into a hotel, using the parking lot in the back of the site.

 

How such a project would work isn’t clear. The Ville Marie borough has received preliminary plans for the future usage of the Mount Stephen Club site, but those haven’t been made public.

 

A spokesperson for Tidan was on vacation and not available to comment.

 

alampert@montrealgazette.com

 

http://www.twitter.com/RealDealMtl

[LindbergMTL]

Avec le Waldorf et le Ritz pas loin, peut-on espérer un retour de la chaîne canadienne Four Seasons?

[Invité]

Il y aura seulement une trentaine de chambres! J'ose espérer qu'un Four Seasons sera plus important!!

[LindbergMTL]

16 chambres dans un building construit sur le parking dont ils parlent?

[Invité]

Sur Canoe :

 

Le splendide édifice ne sera pas pour autant laissé à l'abandon. Tildan a comme projet de construire un hôtel de luxe de 35 chambres à l'arrière du bâtiment et de le relier à l'immeuble actuel.

 

Il s'agit d'un projet de plusieurs millions de dollars.

[WestAust]

On devrait avoir des nouvelles bientôt sur ce projet!

 

Allison Lampert ‏@RealDealMtl

The Mt Stephen Club is being reinvented as part of an 80-room, 11 storey hotel. Story to come. My blog post from 12/11 http://bit.ly/Pl1luP

[MtlMan]

On devrait avoir des nouvelles bientôt sur ce projet!

 

Allison Lampert ‏@RealDealMtl

The Mt Stephen Club is being reinvented as part of an 80-room, 11 storey hotel. Story to come. My blog post from 12/11 http://bit.ly/Pl1luP

 

Voici son article:

 

Conversion to high-end hotel will breath new life into Mount Stephen Club, owner says

By Allison Lampert, THE GAZETTESeptember 26, 2012 7:37 AM

 

Montreal’s historic Mount Stephen Club, closed in December as a social club for the elite, is to be reinvented as part of a high-end boutique hotel project, owner Tidan Hospitality and Real Estate Group said this week.

 

The lavish former residence of Canada Pacific Railway founding president George Stephen is to serve as the front entrance of a new 80-room hotel to be built on the rear parking lot of the downtown site.

 

The stone façade of the club, first opened to men in 1926, won’t change as the building would be attached at the ground level to the back of the new 11-storey hotel, Tidan general counsel Ian Copnick explained.

“It will be integrated into the club. If you don’t cast your eyes upward you won’t see anything different,”

 

Copnick told The Gazette in an interview. “That parking lot will be the floorplate.”

 

Since the company is still trying to obtain project permits from the city of Montreal, Copnick could not say when the hotel and its underground parking lot would be built, or how much the development would cost.

 

Mount Stephen is being redeveloped at a time when private clubs across North America are trying to retain members, along with their relevance amid other social venues like high-end gyms. In 2009, Montreal’s 135-year-old Club Saint Denis closed its doors, leaving 75 employees out of work.

 

But by reinventing Mount Stephen as a hotel, Tidan would be facing a new set of challenges in Montreal’s hospitality market where fierce competition has eroded margins. That’s especially the case with the Mount Stephen Club, industry experts say, because as a boutique hotel, Tidan’s construction costs would be spread over just 80 rooms.

 

According to hospitality research firm PKF Consulting, average Montreal hotel room occupancy is expected to remain flat at 66 per cent in 2012. Average daily rates are forecast to be $136 in 2012, down from $137 in 2011, PKF data show.

 

Copnick said the privately held Tidan, which operates eight hotels in Quebec, including the Nouvel Hotel and Château Versailles in downtown Montreal, wouldn’t divulge any of its financial plans for “competitive reasons.” He said the Mount Stephen Club, an example of late Victorian architecture with 24-karat gold doorknobs, would charge rates in line with top city hotels like the St. James in Old Montreal, where fall weekend prices searched by a reporter ran upward of $390 a night.

“We’re not talking about a cheap hotel, it’s going to be higher end,” Copnick said. “We definitely bring a competitve site and a beautiful historic building.”

 

Privately held Tidan, which has 60 properties in the United States and Canada, acquired the Mount Stephen Club in 2006 for $4 million. Despite investing an additional $1 million in renovations, Tidan said in October 2011 that the club was losing money, even as negotiations soured with its 70 unionized employees.

 

Copnick could not say whether the 70 workers would be invited back to apply for jobs at the hotel.

Modifié 26 septembre 2012 par MtlMan

[jesseps]

Nice to see that we will have another high-end hotel downtown.

[Rusty]

This project is slowly becoming my new favorite project cant wait to see this evolution ... They will have to preserve the great wood interior absolutly gorgeous

[yarabundi]

Je suis certain que la maison est protégée. L'intérieur ne pourra certainement pas être modifiée. Restaurée (s'il y a lieu) mais pas modifiée.