By Ian Ross
The new owners of Sudbury's largest downtown commercial property, the City Centre, are planning a $6-million facelift and intend to have new tenants in place by Christmas in an effort to lure shoppers back to the city's core.
Vista Hospitality, a Binghamton, New York-based developer intends to bring in some new-format shopping, upgrade the adjoining Ramada Inn and develop a convention centre, the first dedicated facility of its kind in the community.
As developers of commercial properties, resorts and hotels across North America and the Caribbean, this is Vista's first foray into mall redevelopment. The deal for the 700,000-square-foot mall/hotel facility, which was under receivership, was finalized June 15.
"We saw an opportunity to revitalize the downtown," says Ray Hirani, Vista's assistant property manager. "We specialize in rebuilding hotels that are in bad shap, and that's where our interest started."
When the whole property, including the mall side went up for sale, it was an opportunity they could not pass up.
The developer is considering a number of different shopping formats like factory-direct outlets, big box retailers, mixed use and unique specialty stores, all depending upon the tenants they bring in.
"We have about three or four ideas we're playing with and we hope to finalize that in the next 30 to 60 days," Hirani says. "Our architects are coming in shortly to start looking at our preliminary renovation plan and get that underway."
Vista's Toronto-based architect is preparing plans to fix up the building's exterior and create some new entrances.
"The bulk of the work is going to be on the outside of the mall and hotel just to give it a new and modern 2000 look," Hirani says.
Plans should be finalized by late October once they solicit feedback from the mall's 43 tenants and the city, before going public with consultation sessions and large design renderings inside and outside the building.
With a 55 per cent vacancy rate, the mall has been steadily losing shoppers since Eaton's pulled out two years ago.
Vista's plan is to fully occupy the building within two years.
Convention space will be aside to fulfill a shortage of banquet and meeting facilities to accommodate groups of more than 1,000 people.
Hirani says since stand-alone municipally operated convention centres do not seem to work well, Vista anticipates sharing some of the initial startup costs for the convention centre with the city.
"We've also been approached by several organizations that would like to bring in attractions and tourists in the city, whereas they just couldn't in the past," Hirani says.
With only 145 hotel rooms on site, Hirani says should they bring 600 to 800 people into the area for a convention, city-wide, the whole accommodations business stands to benefit.
