Eatery closed during construction project

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This article was published 26/08/2011 (5176 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Lobby on York restaurant has closed for about two months while the building’s owner builds four ritzy apartments on the floor above.

The steak and seafood restaurant is located on the main floor of 160 Smith — the new name for the former Sheraton Hotel/York the Hotel in downtown Winnipeg.

The restaurant, whose full name is The Lobby on York — Modern, Steak and Seafood, has been closed since Aug. 15 when the 15 employees were given temporary layoff notices, said general manager Shan Shuwera.

Shuwera said it would have been too noisy in the restaurant with construction work going on overhead. He said the restaurant’s owners hope to reopen it around the Thanksgiving long weekend.

But a spokesman for the building’s owner, Toronto-based Timbercreek Asset Management, said it will likely be late October or early November before the eatery reopens.

Colleen O’Rourke, Timbercreek’s regional manager, said that’s how long it will likely take to build the four second-floor “luxury apartments.”

She said the two-bedroom units will be about 1,200 square feet in size, but will have higher ceilings, higher-end finishings and a different design than the other one- and two-bedroom apartments in the 21-storey building.

“They’ll have a New York loft sort of feel and design.”

Other second-floor additions will include a private-members fitness club and lounge that will be open to both tenants and non-tenants.

The final phase of the building’s redevelopment also involves construction of a 170-stall parkade for tenants. The parkade is being built on the Donald Street side of the building and O’Rourke said it will likely take another three months to complete.

Timbercreek’s vice-president and chief financial officer, Ugo Bizzarri, declined to say how much the company is spending on the final phase of the redevelopment. “But it’s a substantial amount,” he said.

He said the building’s previous owner — Winnipeg’s B & M Land — had planned to develop the second floor as meeting/convention space. But Timbercreek, which bought the building last year, owns and operates residential complexes, not meeting space, he said. So it opted to added four high-end apartments instead.

O’Rourke said the luxury units will likely rent for about $1,900 a month. The other apartments in the building rent for between $990 and $1,800, depending on their size and the floor they are on — the higher the floor, the higher the rent.

Shuwera said The Lobby hopes most of the laid off workers will return. But he realizes it may lose some to other restaurants.

“It’s unfortunate, but it happens.”

murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca