Downtown hotel nearing completion
Holiday Inn Express to open in coming days, originally slated to have opened this past summer
The Holiday Inn Express, which was supposed to open in time for the Pan Am Games over the summer, is set to open this month, according to the city.
By Joel Wittnebel/The Oshawa Express
It’s been in the works for a long time, but downtown Oshawa’s latest hotel is almost complete.
Construction on The Holiday Inn Express at the northeast corner of Simcoe Street North and Richmond Street East got underway in the summer of 2014 and was originally slated to be completed to accommodate visitors for the Pan Am Games in the city this past summer.
That didn’t happen.
However, according to information from the city, the six-storey, 125-room hotel is set to open this month, with the associated conference centre opening later in the spring.
“Staff in our building branch have been over there almost every day doing inspections to make sure that final occupancy could be provided,” says Paul Ralph, the city’s commissioner of development services.
“Any building that is that large, you have a list and you start checking off and widdeling it down. So they’ve been working together very cooperatively.”
The $21-million project faced issues getting off the ground, specifically with the soil, that had to be dealt with before construction could continue.
While the city says the hotel will open this month, The Oshawa Express was unable to get a confirmation from Holiday Inn staffers.
Julie Lemers, the director of sales and marketing for the Holiday Inn Express & Suites Oshawa Downtown-Toronto Area, says they don’t have a definite date yet, but said it should be opening this week.
The new hotel, the site of which was the previous home of Queen’s Market Square, will be home to an indoor pool, fitness facilities, a restaurant and underground parking.
A previous city report stated the economic benefit of the hotel could be as much as $6 million annually for the local economy.