The Wood Innovation and Design Centre was originally supposed to be 10 storeys tall, the highest wood building in the world, a $160-million masterpiece that would occupy the entire block when it was first announced in the 2009 provincial Throne Speech by the Gordon Campbell government.
WIDC was included in two more speeches to open a legislative session before the project finally got underway in 2013 as a six-storey $25-million on a fraction of the block along George Street. It finally opened in the fall of 2014, a handsome addition to downtown that served as the media centre during the 2015 Canada Winter Games and now houses UNBC and Emily Carr University of Art and Design programs.
A short distance away, another ambitious downtown development was announced in the spring of 2012. A group of private investors, led by local developer Rod McLeod, would put $40 million into the construction of a 12-storey Delta Hotel and luxury condo project next door to the Prince George Public Library. The building would have 151 hotel rooms, 34 condominiums, a restaurant and other amenities.
Site development didn't begin until the fall of 2013 but then it seemed to be full steam ahead through that winter. Then, work abruptly stopped in March 2014. McLeod and his partners said at the time that there were only firm design plans for the foundation and the above-ground plans, as well as other details, were still being ironed out.
Then nothing, for more than two years.
Residents grumbled about the eyesore, especially during the Winter Games. They called The Citizen (and presumably the mayor's office) on a regular basis, demanding updates. The only sign of optimism was that the construction crane never left, maintaining a lonely vigil over the area.
Finally in May of this year, The Citizen's Mark Nielsen broke the story that work would resume shortly on the site to build a 175-room Marriott Courtyard. Utah-based PEG development had a sketch of the hotel posted on its website, announcing the hotel would open in 2017.
Like WIDC, the final hotel product won't be the same as what was first advertised but it will be a welcome addition to the city nonetheless. The facility will add to the city's hospitality inventory and it's another significant improvement to downtown, the first in many years backed solely with private sector funds.
Unlike WIDC or the new RCMP detachment, this isn't a government project. McLeod and his partners had their money on the line and the behind-the-scenes delays were no doubt frustrating over those long months between that exciting announcement nearly four-and-a-half years ago.
Both the new Sandman and Treasure Cove developments also took longer to build than they were supposed to and there were construction pauses on both of those efforts, a fact that probably gave McLeod little comfort as he kept working to get this project back on track.
Large, ambitious projects like this come with a fair degree of risk, not just financially but to reputations as well. There is also significant public and media scrutiny to content with, not to mention the regulatory hurdles from government. The difficulty of clearing those obstacles is often underestimated in the timeline of many business plans, as seems to be the case with the hotel, but with the other two major hotels built in Prince George in the last 15 years, and certainly with WIDC.
The devil is in the details, the old saying goes, but the details finally seem to have been completely address and the Marriott Courtyard downtown has the green light. There is still plenty of work to be done but, at long last, steps are being taken to finally put this hotel to bed.
