It’s checkout time for Winnipeg’s Clarion Hotel and Suites.
An Inuit investment corporation has acquired the Portage Avenue building next to Polo Park that also houses the Urban Oasis spa, an Original Pancake House restaurant and a variety of professional offices.
Sakku Investment Corp., which has been working on the deal for more than a year, will convert the hotel into a medical boarding facility providing comfort and stability for the Inuit residents of the Kivalliq region of Nunavut who travel to Winnipeg for medical care.
The Clarion signage and the property’s association with the Choice Hotel brand are coming to an end.
“We are ecstatic about this facility,” said Sakku president and CEO David Kakuktinniq. “We needed a larger facility, one that was more properly designed for the purpose and this hotel fit the bill perfectly.”
The organization currently operates a facility on Burnell Street that has 40 rooms and can handle about 80 patients a night.
“It is an understatement to say that we have outgrown the Burnell facility.”
The organization processes about 200 people each day in Winnipeg — more than 70,000 per year — which meant that many had to stay at other hotels, creating additional pressures in getting people to their appointments, as well as making it more difficult to provide any ancillary services.
Inuit residents in Kivalliq, which is the western region of Nunavut, travel to Winnipeg hospitals for many medical procedures, including virtually all births.
“We needed a larger facility, one that was more properly designed for the purpose and this hotel fit the bill perfectly.”
While Thursday marked the first public disclosure of the transaction, Kakuktinniq said it was the “worst kept secret” in Nunavut, and residents are very happy about it.
“This means a lot to them,” he said. “They are coming here for medical reasons and it is their time for need. They need the comfort and security of home. This gives them that. We are very mindful of what it represents.”
Sakku and its operating entities, including the Burnell facility known as Larga Winnipeg, bill the government of Nunavut for medical travel costs.
The Clarion property includes about 40,000 square feet of commercially leased space, along with the Original Pancake House, which leases an adjacent building and a parkade.
Kakuktinniq said all the existing leases will be honoured.
“We have been very careful to make sure our footprint coming in is a soft one,” he said. “We are being cordial and collaborative with everything that was here before and we promise to carry that through. We are here for a good purpose.”
Hazel Kushner, one of the owners of the three Original Pancake House locations — celebrating the local chain’s 65th anniversary this year — said, “We have a few years left on our lease and then another five-year option and Sakku has accepted those terms.”
Terry Friesen, the restaurant manager, said that while it may lose the business and tourist clientele from the hotel, there could be additional business from the new clients.
“We have not yet discussed their meal needs but we are patiently waiting to sit down with Sakku to see how our partnership is going to shape up,” he said.
The new owners intend to quickly demolish the property’s unusable parkade, which was closed last summer because of structural deficiencies. Kakuktinniq said construction on a new parking facility will begin in the fall.
Although the parking facility issues created some problems for the Clarion, the hotel was an otherwise successful operation with one of the best occupancy rates in the city.
“All of us are in our 70s and its time for retirement and to enjoy life and move on,” said Joe Paletta, one of six siblings that had owned the hotel.
They bought the now-64-year-old structure in 2000 when it was Manitoba Telephone Systems’ administration office building.
“All of us are in our 70s and its time for retirement and to enjoy life and move on.”
Paletta said it had to be entirely gutted.
“The building envelope was deteriorating and we had to rebuild everything from the bones up,” he said.
While the sale price was not disclosed, Paletta said they got fair market value.
“Personally I’m very happy the project is in the hands of a First Nations group,” he said. “It is very gratifying to me.”
While some travellers might be disappointed about the transformation of their favorite place to stay in the city, Winnipeg’s overall room availability might not be affected, said Mike Juce, executive director of the Manitoba Hotel Association.
That’s because the approximately 120 rooms that had previously been booked nightly for Kivalliq patients will now be freed up while the Clarion’s 139 are taken out of service.
“This will consolidate all their stays in one location,” Juce said. “So it’s sort of a wash.”
Kakuktinniq said it might take until the fall to complete the transition from the Burnell facility to the former hotel. There are already about 40 Kivalliq residents at the Portage Avenue property and that number is expected to increase to 80 by next week.
All staff at both the hotel and Sakku’s Burnell facility are expected to be employed in the building. A new name may be chosen through a public process.
Lots of planning is still underway. There is already a dentist operating in the leased commercial space and there is talk about installing other ancillary medical services, such as an optometrist or physiotherapist.
“This will consolidate all their stays in one location… So it’s sort of a wash.”
As well, it’s expected that some of the existing boardrooms will be converted to rooms for hobbies, sewing, an Internet café and, maybe, a chapel.
One other big question for the new owners is whether to keep the waterslide that was built onto the building when the Palettas acquired it.
Kakuktinniq said they are still considering their options.
