TORONTO — A site at Toronto’s Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) grounds that has significant military history will provide the footprint for a new 26-storey hotel to be built by Henry Kallan’s New York-based Library Hotel Collection.
Currently the site is a parking lot on CNE land, however, the boutique hotel company, which owns four hotels in New York City, plans to celebrate the history that lies beneath the asphalt in their build. The hotel’s design, by Norr architects of Toronto, includes plans to reveal a one-metre-thick stone wall — once army barracks circa 1840 — which gave shelter to hundreds of British soldiers. The designers say the historic foundation will be put behind glass. In a Globe and Mail story, NORR architect David Northcote said, “you’ll come across a walkway suspended over a glass cover, looking down on both sides into the archeological foundations.”
Dianne Young, CEO, Exhibition Place, says HK Hotels won the bidding process a few years ago, because they promised to preserve the archeological foundations at the site.
Construction is slated to begin in 2013.
The hotel, which will be called Hotel X, adds another property to the Library Hotel Collection’s portfolio, a privately owned and operated range of hotels made up of the Library Hotel, Casablanca Hotel, Hotel Giraffe and Hotel Elysé — all in New York City.
