Historic Moose Jaw hotel listed for sale at close to $11M
Moose Jaw’s Grant Hall Hotel is again listed for sale — and the owners say they’re sure to lose on the deal.
The historic Main Street building, built in 1927, was on the market for two-and-a-half years. But it never sold, and wasn’t even advertised for much of last year.
Now a new real estate company is making an “aggressive” push to sell the 82,804 square-foot building. But prospective buyers will notice a higher price on the listing: $10.999 million.
“We should be reasonable and realistic and fair when it comes to a price,” said Garry Oledzski of Avison Young, who is handling the sale. But fair is negotiable.
“We just say to everybody: We’re open to any discussion and any option that might be out there,” he said.
The owners — a group of four siblings with Verna Alford of Regina’s Alford’s furniture as principal — say they’ve pumped $14 million into the building, far more than the listing price.
That’s despite reportedly paying just $1 for the long-abandoned hotel and relying on family labour for much of the restoration after taking over the property in 2006. According to Alford, the building was just that decrepit. She says it was ready for demolition.
“It was devastation,” she said. “There was graffiti all over the place. There’s 115 windows in this building; every single one was smashed … There was three feet of water in the basement, the lower level, and of course that was quite putrid.”
Her brothers, Erwin and Alvin Beug, put in years of work with the help of a small team. They cleared out the junk, restored the crumbling moulding and stripped wide expanses to the bare concrete.
Erwin even used a homemade drill rig to dig 120 holes for a geothermal heating system.
Each one reaches 150 feet into the ground.
But the Grant Hall restoration work didn’t bring financial rewards. The siblings initially set aside several floors for a seniors’ residence, apparently to help secure financing. They came to regret it.
One of the brothers said the idea “wasn’t working” because it cost too much in staff. He said they “couldn’t fill the rooms” due to a glut of care home options.
“We were losing big money in those years,” he said. “If it had of been a hotel off the start, it probably would have been better.”
Now it is a hotel, and a fine one at that. It boasts an opulent dining room and bar, past a lobby with beautiful spiral columns. The work crew knocked down walls to expand the bedrooms.
Now there are 61, each with its own special touches. Some bear names like the Premier Room or the Elton John Room. Although the singer never stayed here, he is said to have sat on the sofa.
Other famous guests did pass through the hotel during its early decades, when, according to Oledzski, it was the premier destination in Moose Jaw. It hosted King George VI and the Queen mother, the Von Trapp family, hockey legend Maurice “Rocket” Richard and John G. Diefenbaker, according to Brian Bell, formerly of Heritage Moose Jaw. Alford said the “top heifer” once visited, though it is unclear what competition the cow had prevailed in.
Alford said the restoration aimed to recapture those days of grandeur.
But there’s still a mix of old and new. The hotel is full of pleasant quirks, like a swimming pool transformed into a movie theatre. A stately dome in the ceiling, steps from the dining room, is actually a repurposed satellite dish that Erwin bought from a neighbour for $75.
The siblings admit the hotel is still losing money, though they suggest the drain comes from debt servicing costs. According to the land title, there’s a $7.5-million mortgage registered against the property.
Whatever the cause, the bottom line isn’t where Alford hoped to see it by now.
“Right now, the financials do not look good,” she said. “They’re not as good as they should be or could be.”
But Alford sees a profitable summer season on the horizon. She said the family has just hired a new general manager. While there are still a few vacancies on any given week, she said Grant Hall’s reputation as the place to stay in Moose Jaw is building every day.
Oledzski said the hotel “is just starting to turn the corner.”
“It can only go up from here, now that the renovations are virtually complete, now that the management team is in place, now that the word is out there and it’s spreading,” he said.
“It’s getting its reputation as being a boutique hotel, a great place for couples to come to, a great place to have weddings, anniversaries and functions like that. It’s got that ambience.”
Since Avison Young took over in November, Oledzski has spread the word far and wide. He said he’s seeking buyers from the local area, the province and beyond — even in the United States.
He said more people have downloaded the brochure than for any other property listed through the company’s Regina office.
“I’ve had a whole bunch of people call me about it,” Oledzski said.
He said he’s determined to sell the property, especially since Moose Jaw is his hometown. He said his recent visits have rekindled memories of nights spent with friends in the hotel bar.
Alford seems to trust that his efforts will succeed.
“There will be a buyer out there,” said Alford. “I would think that, when they come and look at this, there’s a lot of labour of love in here.
“Yes there will be a loss. But at the same time, there is the sense of agreed achievement, because we’ve given Moose Jaw a heritage piece of property that’s going to last them another 80 years.”