A big change to the Vancouver waterfront has been approved by city councillors.
A six-storey, 250-room floating hotel, which would be located next to the Vancouver Convention Centre in Coal Harbour, was approved after a public hearing on Tuesday night.
The “floatel” is a joint venture between the Finland-based Sunborn Group and the Vancouver Harbour Flight Centre.
It would include a hotel, a bar, shops, restaurants, a cafe, a spa and a new viewing area.
There has been some pushback to the project and some speakers on Tuesday night voiced their opposition.
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“Three thousand hotel rooms that have already been approved, we don’t see a rush to approve another one,” Michelle Travis with Unite Here Local 40 said.
“There are 3,700 more hotel rooms in the pipeline. The hotel policy that the city passed last year calls for 10,000 rooms by 2050, not by 2026.”
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Hans Niemi with Sunborn Group said there is a great demand for hotel rooms in Vancouver.
“The project has really been kick-started by the needs of the hotel sector,” he said.
“There’s a great demand for hotel rooms, and by delivering it on a water space that we otherwise couldn’t develop for housing.”
The developers still need to obtain environmental permits and the ship would take about two years to build and transport to the harbour.
Where’s the waste going?
Cool idea I guess. Not sure what people are complaining about it blocking views, as if you can’t walk 50 feet to the west of it and still see the views. And they’re going to build a public platform in front of it.
The man at the end talking about what you will be able to “view” from the new walkway.. I think he is misleading as look at the rendering.. it blocks…”checks notes”…..the view to the north-the lions mountains, the view to the east-the second narrows bridge. There is no way that this will create “better views.” Trust me when I say this. I’ve been down this road before. Its all talk.
Rob – So you’ll be a customer then
more rooms for the government to rent to put homeless people in on the up side the compact design of the hotels will cut the governments cost of delivering there government free drugs to there addicts.