Hyatt Place Coming to Downtown Winnipeg

Hyatt Place through its Toronto developers has announced that downtown Winnipeg will see a historic building converted into a hotel at 138 Portage Avenue. It is just down the street from the Fairmont Hotel and Richardson Building on Portage Avenue East.

The Hyatt Place Hotel will build atop and on the eastern side of the 1909 Keewayden Block (Jacob Crowley Building), a Chicago-style warehouse building that has housed a number of businesses but hosted garment industry related businesses for decades.

The building is immediately behind the BellMTS buldings and surrounded by parking lots, some used by the telecom.

The views towards The Forks should prove amazing and the just down the street is Shaw Park and Portage and Main.

Parking should not be a problem as the building is surrounded by parking lots and may in fact have allotted spaces for itself already. It has been pointed out that entrance and exits might be interesting for hotel guests using hotel shuttle, taxis or rentals. People familiar with the Fairmont Hotel can attest to the entrance there which has its challenges.

Hyatt Place is not a big hotel. It caters to business people in town and will likely have use of being centrally located or near airports. In some ways, this add on to an old building has the feel of red River College and their Princess campus which incorporated the facades of old buildings. In this case, the shell and bones of the old building will be the foundation of the new one.

It is difficult to find fault with this business when the alternative in many cases has been the bulldoze older buildings for ever greater parking. I think it can aptly be shown there is a ton of parking surrounding this new hotel. The establishment is small enough to imagine that it will not generate need the car traffic of its neighbour to the west at the Fairmont which hosts ballroom events as well as meetings regularly.

This Hyatt will be under construction at the same time as differently branded Hyatt rises up in Seasons of Tuxedo in front of Cabela's. A crane is already on site and foundation is being laid.

There was some doubt about the amount of hotels being built in the city but recent occupancy rates have suggested that trade show and business travel remains strong. Tourism has been steady as well. Hyatt Place should be a welcome addition to downtown Winnipeg.