Like the Lafayette in Buffalo and Detroit's Book Cadillac, Hamilton's Royal Connaught Hotel didn't deserve the history it got.
Opened in 1916, built by Harry Frost (of Frost Fence fame), it had some glamorous years. The NHL governors would have their meetings there during its first decade. It was the focus of Hamilton's high life for years, but by the 1980s, it was in serious decline, and in 1992, it faced its first foreclosure. By the 1990s, it was a has-been, lovely on the outside, seriously shabby on the inside. By 2004, it was closed, and sat vacant for 10 years, withstanding an absurd proposal from developer Harry Stinson for a 100-storey Connaught Tower in 2008 and then, nothing.
Until now.
A coalition of Hamilton developers, including Ted Valeri of Valery Homes and Rudi Spallacci of the
Spallacci Group, bought the old girl about two-and-a-half years ago and will be turning it into condos, part of a five-phase project that may add as many as three extra towers in the adjacent parking lot for a possible total of 700 condo units in what many hope will be a revitalized downtown core.
The first two phases will focus on the hotel itself, where 232 units will be added to the renovated lobby, which opens as a sales centre June 7.
"As we were working, we found the original floor that was placed there back in the 20s or 30s," Valeri says, "and we managed to find somebody, really good tile setters, to bring the stone back to its grandeur. There were some places we had to fill in with new granite, but most of the floor is original. Same thing with the plaster mouldings around the columns."
There will be 10,000 feet of retail in the original building, with ground-floor retail also planned for the new towers.
If sales go well, the group hopes to have its first residents move in sometime during the hotel's centenary in 2016.
Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Ted Valeri, Rudi Spallacci