Six-storey, 250-room floating hotel in Vancouver harbour approved – BC | Globalnews.ca
A big change to the Vancouver waterfront has been approved by city councillors.
A six-storey, 250-room floating hotel, which would be located next to the Vancouver Convention Centre in Coal Harbour, was approved after a public hearing on Tuesday night.
The “floatel” is a joint venture between the Finland-based Sunborn Group and the Vancouver Harbour Flight Centre.
It would include a hotel, a bar, shops, restaurants, a cafe, a spa and a new viewing area.
There has been some pushback to the project and some speakers on Tuesday night voiced their opposition.
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“Three thousand hotel rooms that have already been approved, we don’t see a rush to approve another one,” Michelle Travis with Unite Here Local 40 said.
“There are 3,700 more hotel rooms in the pipeline. The hotel policy that the city passed last year calls for 10,000 rooms by 2050, not by 2026.”
Hans Niemi with Sunborn Group said there is a great demand for hotel rooms in Vancouver.
“The project has really been kick-started by the needs of the hotel sector,” he said.
“There’s a great demand for hotel rooms, and by delivering it on a water space that we otherwise couldn’t develop for housing.”
The developers still need to obtain environmental permits and the ship would take about two years to build and transport to the harbour.
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