Concord hotel to get $1.2-M makeover

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/12/2018 (2467 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Another McPhillips Street motel will undergo a major renovation and brand change.

The Concord Motor Hotel, a fixture on McPhillips for more than half a century, is preparing for a $1.2-million facelift, including converting its pub to a sports bar.

“In the 1990s, this place was packed,” said Harvey Lali, the new owner. “That’s why I bought it. It has too much potential.”

The hotel will be renamed the Grand Royal Legacy Hotel.

Lali closed the deal for the hotel six months ago, shelling out about $1.8 million for the 29,000-square-foot building. He has already patched a leaky roof and will put on a new roof in spring. He is preparing to replace more than half the sprinklers.

Lali, 30, is a member of a hotel and commercial development family business from India called the Royal Group of Companies, which includes Lali’s parents and siblings. The family immigrated to Toronto 11 years ago, and Lali moved to Winnipeg in 2009.

In India, the family owns gas stations, banquet halls and even a private college. In the Toronto area, it has developed restaurants and hotels. It owns three Lally Sweets restaurants in Brampton and a hotel it refurbished in Wasaga Beach, about 100 kilometres outside Toronto.

In Manitoba, the family business recently completed the Seven Oaks School Division bus depot in West St. Paul. Lali also owns Royal Brothers Transport, a nine-truck transport firm. The family has more development ideas for Winnipeg, but Lali said it was too early to discuss them.

Plans for the Concord include bringing back the windows that were sealed with stucco walls in the 1990s so it could run strip shows. That will be gone. Lali plans to let natural light in again. There will also be craft beer.

The exterior will include metal cladding and a signage tower with the hotel’s new logo, a new restaurant patio and a bar patio. There will be a new beer vendor, beverage room and guest rooms will be upgraded.

“For me, the biggest challenge is doing the facelift for this because this place needed a lot of work when I came in,” Lali said.

“The biggest challenge is what safety codes the city will allow us to grandfather,” he said. “The building was built in 1963. At that time, the safety codes were different.”

The worst-case scenario is if the safety codes make it cheaper to demolish the facility and rebuild. Lali doesn’t think that will be the case, however.

“I don’t believe we need to tear down because the structure is concrete and pretty solid. It’s my priority to keep it if I can,” he said.

Lali hopes construction can begin next spring and be completed in 2020 but he still needs all the permits. The Concord will continue to operate during renovations.

“From my perspective, this is the heart of the city,” Lali said. It’s 15 minutes from south Winnipeg, five minutes from downtown, five to 10 minutes from the airport, he added.

“There’s every business on McPhillips. If the management is good, the business doesn’t let you down,” he said. But customers want change and that’s what Lali plans to give them.

Several suburban hotels have undergone major upgrades in recent years, including the Dakota Motor Hotel, the Red Lion Inn (formerly the Westwood Village Inn), the Howard Johnson Hotel on Ellice Avenue (now a Holiday Inn) and the Four Points by Sheraton Winnipeg South.

The former Lincoln Motor Hotel at 1030 McPhillips St. underwent a major rebranding as the Four Crowns Inn a few years ago.

Arieh Kravets, his father, Boris, and another father-and-son team — Cal and Ravi Ramberran — bought the Lincoln in October 2013 and spent $1 million refurbishing it.

The Four Crowns Inn is one of at least four hotels the Kravets-Ramberran group owns. The others are the Viking Inn in Gimli, the Altona Motor Hotel and the Ile-des-Chênes Motor Hotel. Lali said he has talked to the Four Crowns owners about what it takes to transform an older motel.

“I think there’s potential for that (Concord) property, with the amount of traffic that goes up and down that street every day,” Manitoba Hotel Association president, Scott Jocelyn said.

“I think the neighbourhood would be quite receptive to someone coming in and making something of that property.”

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca