115 year old Canmore Hotel focus of sales talk

Moderator: newsposter

115 year old Canmore Hotel focus of sales talk

Postby Bob van Wegen » Wed Oct 19, 2005 8:40 am

Canmore Hotel focus of sales talk

Sherri Zickefoose
Calgary Herald


Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Offers to buy the Canmore Hotel are pouring in as fast as beer flows from its taps, but owners of Alberta's second-oldest working hotel are in no rush to sell.

"We seem to be getting more inquiries now than we usually do," said David Rencz, a Canmore lawyer and part-owner of the 115-year-old hotel, which celebrated its anniversary this month.

"At this point, it's basically talk," Rencz said. "We're not really trying too hard to sell it but, of course, if the price is right, I guess anything's for sale."

No one has an explanation for the renewed interest in the Bow Valley watering hole and rooming house, but the four owners, who have been at the helm of the "Can Ho" for nearly 20 years, are listening to the offers.

"Someone's kicking the tires. No deal has happened yet. Whether it will, I don't know," said general manager Gary Ashdown.

"Certainly there's lots of rumours flying around. There are some interested parties," he said.

For more than a century, the mountain hotel's bar has drawn pints of beer to quench the thirst of local miners and, later, skiers and snowboarders.

"It's definitely the locals' hangout," said Ashdown.

The hotel bills itself as the second-oldest running hotel in Alberta, following Edmonton's former Strathcona Hotel and Hub Cigar Store.

"Other than the RCMP barracks, it's really the only heritage building left in Canmore," said Ashdown.

Ashdown and his wife Jackie, born and raised in Canmore, have managed the hotel for a decade and have seen the building used as a backdrop for television shows. The Canmore Hotel appeared in the television series Everwood, albeit with a set facade.

In the past few years, the tavern was featured in a Bollywood film, Ashdown said.

"They used the entire bar. They said there'd be 20 or 30 people, but there must have been 150 people running all over the place. It was crazy insane, but it was fun."

The hotel features shared bathroom facilities, and nightly rates start at $45. The honeymoon suite goes for $65; it has a private washroom.

The hotel is owned by four partners, including Brian Evans, a former MLA for the Bow Valley.

szickefoose@theherald.canwest.com

© The Calgary Herald 2005
Bob van Wegen
 
Posts: 148
Joined: Sun Oct 09, 2005 12:02 pm

Update: Offer pending for 115-year old Canmore inn

Postby newsposter » Thu Dec 01, 2005 6:25 pm

Offer pending for 115-year old Canmore inn

Sarah McGinnis
Calgary Herald


Wednesday, November 30, 2005


The Canmore Hotel, Alberta's second-oldest working hotel, could have new owners by Christmas.

The 115-year-old building attracted a number of offers in recent months.

"I believe an offer has been accepted. Dec. 15 is . . . when the new people will have to have their funding in place," said Gary Ashdown, manager of the hotel.

Ashdown didn't reveal who is buying the historic building or how much they're paying.

Canmore lawyer David Rencz, former Banff-Cochrane MLA Brian Evans and Calgarians Art Fopma and Brian Twigg have owned the hotel since 1980. None were available to comment Tuesday.

News of the accepted offer raised concerns over the hotel's future.

"I've been told it might be a new building with retail stores on the bottom and condos up top. That would mean tearing down the hotel," said Ashdown.

Built in 1890, the Canmore Hotel is one of the oldest in Alberta, said Harry Sanders who is writing a book on historic hotels in Alberta.

Local citizens wanted to turn it into a historic site but found they couldn't without the owners' permission, said Canmore Mayor Ron Casey.

"A building cannot be designated without the consent of the owner," said Lorne Roder, preservation adviser with the province's Heritage Resource Management program.

smcginnis@theherald.canwest.com

© The Calgary Herald 2005
newsposter
 
Posts: 1964
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2005 11:13 am

Landmark's future uncertain

Postby Bob van Wegen » Mon Dec 05, 2005 5:26 pm

Landmark's future uncertain
Canmore's push for infrastructure may lead to destruction of 'The Ho'

Robert Remington
Calgary Herald

Monday, December 05, 2005

Aaron Goss patiently waited at the bar for five shots of bourbon to be poured, one for each member of the Winnipeg band the D.Rangers, and shook his head.

"It makes me not want to come to Canmore anymore," said the musician, offering his view on the impending sale of the historic Canmore Hotel.

"This place is an island of humanity in a gentrified wasteland. It's our favourite room in the country. We're all a little concerned."

The Canmore Hotel, second only to Edmonton's Strathcona Hotel as the oldest hotel in Alberta still operating as such, might soon be gone, replaced by condos and high-end stores. An

offer on the historic building has been accepted by the current owners and, if the sale closes by Dec. 15, the valuable property on Canmore's main street -- a focal point of the mountain town's social life since 1890 -- could be as distant a memory as "two-and-a-juice."

Although the prospective buyers have not come forward with their intentions for the property, the fear is that the site is simply too valuable to be maintained as a funky tavern and music venue with a handful of $45-a-night-rooms occupied mainly by itinerant musicians.

How tragic. If the Canmore Hotel goes, with it goes a piece of Canmore's soul, not to mention its most visible link to its past. The hotel has defined the look and feel of the town's main street for 115 years. It served as a hospital during the flu epidemic of 1918 and was once run by a woman, Mary Rodda, who battled the mores of her time to become one of the first women allowed to operate a bar in Alberta. She died in October at age 97, leaving behind a reputation for keeping rowdy coal miners and railway workers in line when they'd had too much to drink.

"It's too bad. This has always been a place for the working man," says Art Prozny, a local taxi driver who has lived in the Bow Valley since 1957 and remembers buying beer for 10 cents a glass. The coal miners are gone now, replaced by resort homeowners from England, Germany, Calgary and Texas.

The real pity is that nobody in Canmore is putting up much of a fight to save the joint. The town would likely have to compensate the existing or new owners if the building was declared a municipal resource -- the only real hope for preserving the building -- and that's not an easy sell in a community with a host of infrastructure demands on its agenda.

"Town council would have to ask residents if they want the hotel, or do they want a new day care, or a skating rink or a recreation centre," says Cathy Jones, a volunteer with the Canmore Museum, who organized a public information meeting on the issue two weeks ago. "It's frustrating, but we have to appreciate that and accept it."

Unless deemed to be a cultural treasure for all Albertans, saving old buildings in Alberta has to be a locally

driven initiative, says Lorne Roder, a preservation advisor for the province. In the case of the Canmore Hotel, a grassroots citizens' campaign would have to convince the town to pass a

bylaw declaring the site a municipal resource. Matching grants would then be available to restore the building from provincial and federal programs.

The owners must agree to the designation and might have to be compensated, but there are creative ways to achieve that, such as a land swap, Roder said. "It takes some political will."

The town could move unilaterally without the owners consent, he said, but it is rarely done.

"It makes sense for them to save that building," said Roder. "Much of the guidelines for historic main streets are based on the oldest building on the street, and the Canmore Hotel has set that standard. It's a two- or three-storey main street, after the hotel, not five or six, and many of its architectural features have been copied along the street. For that reason alone it's worth saving. But, economically, you can also do very well with historic properties. They attract people. They are good for business."

Nobody's saying the Canmore Hotel has to remain a smoky tavern. Frankly, the place needs a thorough scrubbing. The town could use a non-smoking restaurant-and-music venue like Calgary's Ironwood. Alternatively, "the Ho," as it is known locally, could be

redeveloped along the lines of Fernie's Raging Elk Hostel, with a lucrative downstairs tavern and upstairs accommodation ranging from dorms to semi-private and private rooms.

But to completely lose the town's defining structure, which has been used as a backdrop for movies and TV series, would be a tragedy.

What is the most vibrant section of downtown Calgary? It is isn't the cold, sterile glass-and-concrete jungle, but the old sandstone buildings along Stephen Avenue that weren't demolished in the redevelopment frenzy of the 1970s and 1980s. Canmore needs only to look to its neighbour for proof.

"If nothing else, this has been a wake-up call for the community," says Jones. "We have to look at these old buildings proactively rather than waiting until the 11th hour, but what a huge price to pay for that wake-up call."

rremington@theherald.canwest.com

© The Calgary Herald 2005
Bob van Wegen
 
Posts: 148
Joined: Sun Oct 09, 2005 12:02 pm

Calgary Herald editorial

Postby newsposter » Tue Dec 06, 2005 8:58 am

A landmark worth saving


Calgary Herald


Tuesday, December 06, 2005


One more historic landmark seems destined to fall to the wrecking ball, illustrating that Canmore residents have no better preservation planning than we've seen in Calgary.

The Canmore Hotel, Alberta's second-oldest working hotel with a 115-year history, has reportedly been sold, and the new owners are to take possession of it by mid-month.

The notion that it would remain as a modest low-rise charging out rooms at $45 a night on some of the priciest real estate in the country seems unlikely. Many fear the building will be razed to make way for condominiums and retail shops, taking with it another piece of Alberta's history. When are historical preservation societies and the governments who support them going to get proactive about saving these landmarks?

It always seems to happen this way. Word of a sale is made public and non-profit agencies scramble to raise enough media attention and political interest to get municipal or provincial governments to designate the building a heritage site. More often than not, they fail.

This ad hoc approach is the reason Alberta has a shrinking pool of architectural treasures. The time to designate a site is not after it has already been sold. By then it's too late. It would make far more sense for historic societies to identify buildings they'd like to preserve and approach the owners asking for the right of first refusal to buy it when it goes on the market.

That way, a fair price can be bargained, the society can arrange to purchase the property with government help, and the building can be designated without resistance. Once it has been preserved, the society could resell it with the caveat intact.

Some historians argue that heritage designation can make a property more valuable, because of the attendant tourism it attracts.

Private property owners cannot be expected to offer their assets to the public without compensation. It's time for those who wish to preserve what little is left of our architectural history to become more strategic in how they go about it. Otherwise, there may soon be nothing left.

© The Calgary Herald 2005
newsposter
 
Posts: 1964
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2005 11:13 am


Return to News

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 44 guests

cron