Ashley Ford
Province
Okabe North America’s Shu Naito shows off an architect’s model of the planned Coast Coal Harbour Hotel on Hastings Street.
Vancouver is getting yet another major hotel for the downtown core. Okabe North America Inc., owner of Coast Hotels and Resorts, said yesterday it will build a 20-storey, 220-room full-service hotel at 1180 West Hastings St.
When completed in 2009, the $60-million four-star Coast Coal Harbour will sit in a strategic position just two blocks from the new Vancouver convention centre.
“The Coast Coal Harbour Hotel will become our flagship property,” said firm president Graeme Barrit. “Vancouver is an important holiday gateway for the entire Pacific Northwest and this new hotel will allow us to more effectively market our growing network of properties in popular tourist destinations and to capture a larger share of the tourism market.
“Vancouver clearly needs more hotel capacity around the convention centre. This new hotel is in a spectacular location which is ideally suited to business and leisure travellers,” said Shu Naito, vice-president of Okabe North America. “Vancouver, we feel, has tremendous growth potential leading up to and following the 2010 winter Olympics.”
Construction is scheduled to start this month and is expected to create approximately 415,000 person-hours of employment. The first new hotel built by Okabe since the opening of the Coast Victoria Harbourside Hotel and Marina in 1991, the project will be managed by Delta Land Development Ltd. and built by Vancouver’s Scott Construction Group.
One of the most striking visual elements of the Downs/Archambault & Partners-designed property will be the main entry off West Hastings, highlighted by an expansive backlit green, blue and yellow glass ceiling.
It will also have an 8,000-square-foot ballroom and conference facility, private boardrooms, business centre, locker room and a landscaped podium roof deck with an outdoor lap pool and hot tub.
A new 100-seat restaurant specializing in west coast cuisine will occupy the West Pender Street side of the building.
