CF Pacific Centre announces new hotel will replace Four Seasons

Jan 15 2020, 8:06 pm

A new hotel operator will replace the space of Four Seasons Hotel Vancouver on the property of Cadillac Fairview (CF) at Pacific Centre shopping mall in downtown Vancouver.

The commercial landlord announced today it will introduce a “world-leading, luxury lifestyle hotel brand” on the existing site of the Four Seasons, which is set to see its last guests on January 20 and fully vacate the property by the end of the month.

The 305-ft-tall, 30-storey Four Seasons Hotel Vancouver tower, completed in 1976, will not be demolished; the property will be renovated and repurposed.

However, CF has yet to make public the name of the new hotel brand that will occupy the space. It is also unclear whether the retrofit could lead to a mix of other uses, such as additional retail and office space.

“With today’s announcement we are once again contributing to the fabric of the City by introducing an exciting and vibrant hospitality concept to our landmark property that will solidify it as the destination of choice in downtown Vancouver,” said Tom Knoepfel, senior vice president of western portfolio for CF, in a statement.

“CF Pacific Centre will be home to a leading global hotel and entertainment brand that will be unique not only in Vancouver, but the rest of Canada. We look forward to providing more details about this exciting project in the near future.”

Preliminary construction work will begin this spring.

CF Pacific Centre first opened in 1971, and this was followed by the 30-storey TD Tower in 1972.

The Four Seasons Hotel portion occupies nearly half of the footprint of CF Pacific Centre’s middle city block — over a portion of the indoor mall on the Howe Street side.

A dispute by CF on requesting Four Seasons to undergo renovations to the tower to maintain the property as a “typical first-class luxury hotel” became a matter before the court in 2017.

Then in May 2018, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts announced it will not renew its lease for the only property it owns and manages globally. The lease was last renewed in 1998, before the original term of the lease expired in 2000, for 20 years, with the lease expiring this year.

Four Seasons is expected to reestablish its brand at another downtown Vancouver property at some point in the future.

But the closure of the Four Seasons with its 372 hotel rooms comes at a time when Vancouver is facing a shortage in accommodations capacity to meet the growing demand of its tourism industry. With a net loss of over 1,000 hotel rooms over the last decade, largely due to residential redevelopment, the region currently has fewer guest rooms than the period when it hosted the 2010 Winter Olympics.

As of 2018, with a generated revenue of $1,690 per sq. ft., CF Pacific Centre is the second most profitable mall in Canada — just behind Toronto’s Yorkdale Shopping Centre and ahead of Oakridge Centre and CF Toronto Eaton Centre.

CF Pacific Centre encompasses 711,000 sq. ft. of total retail floor area, including 100 stores and two anchor retail tenants — Holt Renfrew and Nordstrom.

CF has stated it will proceed with the demolition of its glass rotunda structure at the northeast corner of the intersection of Howe Street and West Georgia Street, immediately north of the hotel lobby. It will be replaced with a two-storey, 14,000-sq-ft retail pavilion, which is expected to become Vancouver’s new flagship Apple Store.

701 West Georgia Street Vancouver Pacific Centre rotunda

Artistic rendering of the new retail pavilion at 701 West Georgia Street, replacing the rotunda entrance into CF Pacific Centre. (Perkins + Will Architects)

701 West Georgia Street Vancouver Pacific Centre rotunda

Artistic rendering of the new retail pavilion at 701 West Georgia Street, replacing the rotunda entrance into CF Pacific Centre. (Perkins + Will Architects)

Kenneth ChanKenneth Chan

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