TORONTO — The Westin Harbour Castle is on the market and the iconic hotel, located on the downtown Toronto waterfront, could be the most expensive hotel ever sold in the Canadian market.
Located on 3.5 acres of prime real estate, the 40-year-old, 977-room hotel could fetch $350 million to $400 million, reflecting the potential for the buyer to construct additional buildings on the site, Curtis Gallagher, VP of Hotel Investments at Cushman & Wakefield, told The Globe and Mail.
The property has changed hands numerous times since 1975 and could now be redeveloped — thanks to being zoned for both commercial and residential purposes. Along with the current hotel, there’s room for another tower as well as two additional towers where the conference centre sits across the road at 11 Bay St.
The listing comes on the heels of Concord Pacific Developments’ purchase of the Westin Bayshore in Vancouver for another record-setting $290 million last September. “It’s a big aggregate number, but it’s also a big piece of real estate,” Gallagher says of the Harbour Castle’s price tag.
Gallagher says the sale, and the asking price for the Harbour Castle, are a sign that the market for waterfront development sites in Canada’s most expensive real estate markets is heating up despite a slowing national economy and a falling Canadian dollar. “With the Canadian dollar where it’s at, it just gives that little bit more leverage to foreign buyers,” he says, noting the hotel will be marketed to both local developers and foreign investors [theglobeandmail.com].
