THUNDER BAY, Ont. — The former Shoreline Hotel in Thunder Bay, Ont. is undergoing renovations and will eventually be re-branded as Aiden by Best Western, under new owner Haseeb Mushtaq.
“I think it’s a really good building,” Mushtaq told Sandi Krasowski at The Chronicle-Journal. “If we wanted to construct this kind of hotel today, it would be so costly. It’s all solid brick and all solid concrete…This building has good solid bones.”
The Aiden by Best Western is a high-end boutique hotel brand, launched in the U.S., with only 15 others in the world. The Thunder Bay location will be its 16th site. The hotel’s 65 rooms will be re-designed by Lesley Wong and will feature new carpeting, flooring, paint, wallpaper and furniture. All balconies will be enclosed and artwork will be acquired locally.
The fifth floor will house a rooftop dining patio and bar. Additionally, the Beacon Restaurant on the main floor and the Pier 61 bar, both owned by Ben Arvelin and Julie Garman, will also be renovated.
“With the waterfront, with the cruiseships coming in here, the lookout we have here where we’re located, it’s just phenomenal,” Arvelin told Sandi Krasowski at The Chronicle-Journal. “We have the capability of taking it to the next level…It’s scary and exciting because something new is always the most scary – but you push forward with new ventures and try new things – and it’s going to be spectacular.”
