Hyatt to build hotel at Mac Innovation Park

A consortium of Toronto-based developers plans to build a 134-unit hotel at McMaster Innovation Park facing Highway 403.

No. 16 Hospitality Ltd. says the Hyatt House Hamilton project is expected to cost more than $20 million and be open in the summer of 2019.

“Hamilton seems to be booming,” George Papas, one of the principals of No. 16 Hospitality, said Wednesday on why his consortium is building a hotel here.

“McMaster Innovation Park is geographically located for us in Hamilton,” he said, adding the park will bring in business to Hotel Hyatt, which will be close to downtown, the university and hospitals.

Zach Douglas, president and CEO of McMaster Innovation Park, said the research hub has been looking to attract a hotel to its site. “We’re quite keen to have a quality brand like Hyatt,” he said. “They’re a good fit … what they propose will be attractive to visiting scholars and researchers coming to us.”

Pappas said the consortium didn’t know the innovation park had been looking for a hotel and that it was by chance that it looked into the site.

The five-storey hotel will be on about four acres of land the park is leasing to the hotel development group, Douglas said.

It will be located immediately north of the park’s atrium building and adjacent to the 403 on an old overflow gravel parking lot, he said.

Douglas expects the hotel will be accessible from Longwood Road South where the park’s atrium and campus is located, and from an existing small extension of Frid Street.

“Hamilton is one of the most exciting cities in Canada and McMaster Innovation Park is a big reason why,” said Harry Christakis, principal of No. 16 Hospitality, in a news release sent to The Spectator late Wednesday.

The hotel is expected to take 14 to 18 months to build and to generate 25 full-time positions. The hotel is to have apartment-style kitchen suites.

“Hyatt House is the ideal offering for a robust and dynamic market such as West Hamilton and the McMaster community. The healthy mix of short- and long-stay demand in the area will be well served by the contemporary and award-winning Hyatt House experience.” Scott Richer, Hyatt’s vice-president of real estate and development, said in the release.