Add hotel rooms to the latest list of developments just started or being contemplated here.
On top of last week’s long anticipated start of construction on the 100 room, five-storey Sunshine Inn Executive Suites on Hwy16, last week’s announcement of the intended purchase of Chances Terrace by an Alberta-based hospitality conglomerate, means another hotelier has jumped into the Terrace scene.
Pomeroy Lodging announced May 13 it wants to buy Chances Terrace from the current owners, Lucky Dollar Bingo Management Ltd., with an intended closing date of June 30 pending approval from British Columbia Lottery Corporation and the provincial gaming policy and enforcement branch.
But the company is interested in more than just the local gaming facility. Pomeroy, which began in B.C.’s Peace region and operates hotels, restaurants, and gaming facilities across B.C. and Alberta, has indicated its intention to break into the hotel market here.
Terrace has “been on our radar for a little while,” said Pomeroy president Ryan Pomeroy, speaking at the Chances Terrace property late last week. “We own and operate the gaming facility in Fort St. John and we’re in the hotel business, and Terrace fits well with our business model. We only operate in small, northern communities, so there’s been a lot of similarities to other markets we operate in, so it’s a good fit.”
Smaller, northern towns are key to the company’s business model, he said.
“We put a lot of money back into the communities we operate in,” he said. “We can have more of an impact and be a better corporate citizen in smaller cities rather than someplace like Vancouver.”
And Pomeroy said he’d “love to” operate a hotel in Terrace.
“We’re very interested and actively looking at expanding our business here in Terrace,” he said, noting that a hotel wouldn’t likely be built near the gaming facility but on another property in the area.
That puts the amount of potential new lodging facilities at four.
For now, Smithers developer Kim Tran’s Sunshine Inn is the only one where construction has begun.