HALIFAX — Two well-known Nova Scotia resorts — the Digby Pines Golf Resort and Spa in Digby and the Liscombe Lodge Resort and Conference Centre in Liscomb — have been put up for sale by the province’s Economic and Rural Development and Tourism Department.
A request for proposals was announced June 1 and Jim Spatz, chairman and CEO of Halifax’s Southwest Properties, has already expressed interest in the new opportunities. “We’ll have a look at it for sure,” Spatz told The Chronicle Herald.
Earlier this year, Southwest Properties and Connecticut-based New Castle Hotels & Resorts bought the historic Algonquin Hotel and Resort in Saint Andrews, N.B., from the New Brunswick government. The New Castle group operates the Westin Nova Scotian Hotel in Halifax and has been managing the Digby and Liscomb resorts under a contract that expires next January.
The province has searched for new investors for the two properties in the past, most recently in early 2011 for the same two hotels as well as the Keltic Lodge in Ingonish, which is operated and maintained by the province under a long-term lease agreement with the federal government. No investors were identified and the province subsequently invested $3.1 million to reopen the three properties for the 2012 tourism season.
Keep Reading
