New Hampton Inn By Hilton to Open Fall 2023

The former Charter House and a Best Western Plus since 2002 is under construction and adding two more floors. This picture in 2022 shows the work in progress and opening is scheduled for September 23, 2023. The entire interior was gutted for a completely new configuration. There will be a change in branding too from Best Western to Hampton Inn by Hilton.  This will be a return of Hampton Inn to downtown as the Humphrey Inn used to be a Hampton. An increase from 87 rooms to 134 will make it easy for convention groups in town can stay in one hotel. The former seven conference rooms will be reduced to two. There will continue to be balconies on the west side continuing a tradition of hotels in town. Yes, it's true. 

The old hotel with the Rib Room and Tivoli Cafe was a popular destination  for the business and lawyer crowd for years. The hotel was originally built in 1959 and had additional floor built in 1960 and for a time had 96 rooms. It also had one of the first patios and a swimming pool. Built as a motor hotel, it served the car traveller coming to town for leisure and business. In 1960, Winnipeg's downtown was hopping with business, shopping and entertainment.

Above is the supplied picture of what the new hotel will look like. It is not the only hotel is progress right now. It seems that work by the Sandman has been going on for years. The Windsor, the Pembina and the Cambridge all gone. The Marlborough is for sale. If one had to guess, it would not be too far fetched to think it might be a candidate for conversion to apartments.

While downtown Winnipeg is not the shopping mecca it once was when the original Charter House Hotel went up, the expanded RBC Winnipeg Convention Centre and the Canada Life Centre are quite close by for out of town guests in for a hockey game, concert or a convention. Some who live in the city might question those outside of Winnipeg about the hotels they choose to stay in but consider this: If you are coming in for an Eagles concert from Dryden, you might want to stay downtown to avoid having to find a place to park your car if you had stayed in the airport hotel area. Likewise, if you are attending Ai-kon over three days the RBC, you might want a hotel close by to go back and forth in your anime costume. 

The entertainment district being built piece since the 1975 construction of the convention centre has accelerated in recent years. The new arena downtown was built in 2004 connected the two buildings via skywalk system. The doubling of the convention space by 2015 has triggered a long awaited hotel and condo complex. True North has also added and continues to add office, residential and event space in the former parking lots that had marked the area for decades.

It is easy to see why two floors was being added to a hotel only steps away from the arena and convention centre. The business actually sees quite a future ahead. They are also trying to get work done before Sussex Place Hotel and condos are complete to re-establish their bonifides for the motoring crowd who have stayed there since the 1960s. 

There has been tens years of construction in this area, seven towers, a double sized convention centre and coming out on the other side from the pandemic. Expect to see more business announcement i the surrounding area as Portage Place, The Bay and Portage and Main begin their construction phase.