A handful of new hotels are planned that will add around 1,500 hotel rooms in downtown Vancouver over the next two years
The planned demolition of the former Four Seasons building near Pacific Centre isn’t the only rethinking of hotel plans for downtown Vancouver. There are also a handful of new hotels that are in the final planning stages and expected to break ground in downtown Vancouver within 12 months.
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The number of hotel rooms that these projects will add — around 1,500 over the next two years — is substantial compared with what has been happening in recent years, according to analysts at CoStar Analytics, who follow the accommodation market.
Since the residential condo presale market is stalled and a cycle of new downtown office towers has just finished, developers have been turning their attention to rental housing and hotel development.
In some cases, they have been reworking mixed-use projects to include hotel space instead of condo or office units, according to Laura Baxter, director of hospitality analytics for Canada, and Paul Richter, director of market analytics for Western Canada, at CoStar.
In some cases, projects are making a complete change. For some time, Langley-based developer Marcon had plans to build a luxury condo development at a site on Barclay Street in the West End.
But a few months ago, in November 2024, it submitted a rezoning application to the City of Vancouver for building a 23-storey hotel with 292 rooms instead. The existing building on the site, the Rosellen Suites at Stanley Park, which is more than 60 years old. It has four storeys and about 30 suites.
Another downtown hotel project, which is closer to beginning, is the converting of a 100-year-old, former printing press office space on Seymour Street into what will be known as the Arts & Crafts Hotel. The redevelopment is slated to begin in January and will add 73 rooms when it’s completed around mid-2026.
Two other projects that will be completed later in 2027 include a 33-storey hotel on Davie Street and a 32-storey hotel on West Pender that will be developed by Marcon. These will add the bulk of the new hotel rooms at 460 rooms and 578 rooms, respectively, according to numbers that Baxter tracks.
Cadillac Fairview, the owner of the 25-storey former Four Seasons Hotel building on West Georgia Street, said recently that it will be demolished and replaced with a “new, modern and efficient” multi-use tower that will be part of broader changes at CF Pacific Centre.
The Four Seasons operated its hotel in that location for more than 40 years before closing in January 2020. This was after Cadillac Fairview launched a 2018 lawsuit alleging that the hotel was outdated. Four Seasons rejected the claims, but its lease wasn’t renewed when it ended.
Richter thinks there’s a precedent in that area for the kind of tower that Cadillac Fairview might build.
“I can’t help but draw comparisons to the development across the street, adjacent to Hotel Georgia. I suspect that what will show up at Pacific Centre is something similar: a tower with retail at grade, some office space, potentially condo, residential uses and a hotel component.”
Walt Judas, CEO of the Tourism Industry of B.C., said it was disappointing when the Four Seasons closed because it was popular and served the needs in downtown Vancouver for business travellers, conference delegates and independent visitors.
“It was certainly a blow,” said Judas, describing how it added to the year-on-year trend of a drop in downtown Vancouver hotel rooms.
He said there is still a need for more hotel rooms as business in Vancouver has picked up and it was a good year for the cruise sector and there are some major events ahead.
Having a hotel be part of a new tower at the former Four Seasons location would be welcome, said Judas, adding that large projects like this cost hundreds of millions of dollars and combining hotel rooms with a residential condo element could help to make the numbers work.
“Increasing costs and construction, the availability of trades, all of those things contribute to what is an expensive proposition these days,” he said.