KENORA — Kenora’s mayor and city councillors have voted unanimously to forcefully take ownership of a historic hotel building in the city’s downtown as part of revitalization efforts.
At a media conference held over Zoom July 24, city officials announced the municipality will go through the steps to expropriate the Kenricia Hotel. Currently, it is privately owned, with three commercial tenants and a number of rooms that have a variety of residential tenancies, including longer-term stays and “casual overnight stays,” said Stace Gander, Kenora’s acting co-CAO and director of economic development and tourism.
Kenora Mayor Andrew Poirier said redeveloping the site will do a lot to “reinvigorate and revitalize the downtown core,” and called the decision “a bold move.”
“I remember what the Kenricia Hotel was,” Poirier said. “There were shops in there … there was an unbelievable restaurant in there.
“I remember it vividly — what it was — and now we know what it is, and it's not up to its full potential.”
Should the process go through and the city take ownership of the building — expropriation requires a multi-step process and the current owner does have some recourse under existing provincial legislation — Gander said the municipality would be looking to partner with an investor and developer to carry out the work.
“The goal would be to work through this process and then work to identify a suitable partner and investor for the project, so that the facade and the building itself can be restored to its former glory,” he said.
“Similarly, investment that would take place that would see … the building itself be restored with the commercial operations and the vibrancy that it once had, which was, really, the cornerstone of activity at the busiest corner in Kenora.”
The building is a designated heritage property, meaning any renovations have to preserve certain features and assets. Gander said the city doesn’t know the current state of the building, but, as part of the expropriation process, there are “rights to enter the building,” in order to evaluate the property and figure out what it’s worth.
Gander said the city will soon meet with the three commercial tenants in the hotel building “to talk about what it might mean for their businesses and work with them to minimize any disruptions as it relates to their business.”
City officials couldn’t say how many people are living or staying in the building, but Gander said “we do know that there's very large portions of that building that are vacant.”
He added they will also be working with social agencies as early as Thursday evening “to start to talk about what plans can be made to support these people through transition.”
The entire project could take upwards of two years, Gander said.
As for cost, Gander said “it's not intended to be something that would put pressure on the tax levy.”
“It's an investment, and again, longer term, we expect that the taxes that will be generated as a result of this, in the future, will certainly pay for any sort of thing that would be done today.”
