Fort Garry Hotel draws ‘very strong interest’ from potential new ownership By: Chris Kitching Posted: 5:42 PM CDT Tuesday, May. 12, 2026

The two real estate companies handling the advertised sale of the Fort Garry Hotel in downtown Winnipeg expect it to attract multiple suitors given its uniqueness and prestige.

The landmark hotel has drawn “very strong interest” since the property was posted April 27, said Curtis Gallagher, principal and Canadian hospitality lead with real estate advisory firm Avison Young.

“With the appeal for hotel investment in Canada these days, we expect that there will be a good few choices for new owners of this hotel,” Gallagher said from Toronto on Tuesday.

Hotels such as the Fort Garry, at 222 Broadway, just west of Main Street, don’t go on the market very often.

“It’s irreplaceable. You couldn’t and wouldn’t build this anymore, so there’s a scarcity to something like this as a true trophy style of investment,” Gallagher said. “There aren’t a lot of really good opportunities on the market to acquire. There’s a little bit of scarcity to quality hotel investments.”

Avison Young, headquartered in Toronto, and brokerage Cushman & Wakefield Winnipeg represent the current owners.

A deal is expected this year. The four-star, 113-year-old hotel does not have a list price.

Gallagher said it is difficult to put a potential sale price on the Fort Garry.

“With something as iconic and irreplaceable as this, we sort of engage with qualified investors once they sign a (non-disclosure agreement), let them dig into all of the detail of the data room and have conversations about what they are thinking and sort of take it from there,” he said.

“It’s irreplaceable. You couldn’t and wouldn’t build this anymore.”

With a 1.5-acre footprint, the hotel has 236 guest rooms and suites, a spa, restaurants, conference and banquet space, Yuk Yuk’s comedy club and a seasonal patio.

Managing partners and local entrepreneurs Ida Albo and Richard Bel, along with the Quebec-based Laberge Group, acquired the Fort Garry in 1993. By then, it had already been deemed a national historic site.

“They’ve owned it for over three decades, and this is really sort of the retirement plan and time to hand it over to a new owner for the next chapter of its story,” Gallagher said.

The current owners, who received praise this week for spending millions on improvements and preserving the building’s heritage, have hopes for the Fort Garry’s future once a sale is completed.

“In any transaction, it’s not always just about price. It’s really about the whole package,” Gallagher said.

“When you have something that is so meaningful to the city of Winnipeg, but also to them — they poured their whole lives into this — they absolutely want to see it elevated, rather than diminished.”

Albo told the Free Press in March she and her business partners had invested about $5 million in the hotel since the COVID-19 pandemic, including a new, exclusive “vice regal floor.”

The Fort Garry welcomes about 80,000 guests per year, and employs nearly 400 full- and part-time staff.

The hotel was constructed in Château style by the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway. It has welcomed everyone from British royals and A-list actors to newlyweds and staycationing families over the years.

In a news release, Avison Young likened the Fort Garry to six Canadian hotels — the Château Laurier in Ottawa; Hotel Madonald in Edmonton; Banff Springs and Jasper Park Lodge in Alberta; Hotel Vancouver; and the Queen Elizabeth in Montreal — “with comparable recognition and rich histories.”

All six are owned by large — multinational, in some cases — real estate investment or hospitality firms. The Fort Garry’s current ownership is local and independent.

The odds of the Fort Garry remaining locally owned after the sale should not be considered slim, according to Gallagher.

“It’s not always just about price. It’s really about the whole package.”

“Winnipeg is a very important city and there’s a lot of wealth in that city,” he said. “Because somebody may not have invested in a hotel before, that doesn’t matter. There are third-party professional companies that can operate the day-to-day for these potential owners that can treat this as a passive investment.”

The Fort Garry was previously put on the market in 2019. A potential sale was scuttled by the pandemic, which caused a temporary downturn in the hospitality sector amid lockdowns and travel restrictions.

The current owners and a prospective buyer mutually and amicably agreed to terminate a deal, Gallagher said.

“While it was painful at the time, (the owners) continued to put and invest money into it, and then the performance improved,” he said. “It’s a blessing in disguise in the sense that the market is stronger, the asset is stronger and the asset is performing better.”

A recent Avison Young analysis said Winnipeg’s hospitality sector experienced growth in 2025, with one of the highest year-over-year increases (6.9 per cent) in revenue per available room among major Canadian markets.

Gallagher said the hotel industry is seeing a lot of new interest from non-traditional owners.

Chris Macsymic, executive vice-president and principal of Cushman & Wakefield Winnipeg, said more than $1 billion is now being spent on various hotel projects in the downtown area over the next three to five years.

“People are really starting to see the benefits of downtown, and are quite excited about what’s happening and what’s to come,” he said. “We’ve used the word ‘iconic’ a few times, but that’s the perfect word to describe (the Fort Garry).”

The locally owned Fairmont Winnipeg hotel, at Portage Avenue and Main Street, is scheduled to close from July 1 to spring 2027 for a full renovation.

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Shiu-Yik Au, an associate professor of finance at the University of Manitoba’s Asper School of Business, said he wouldn’t be surprised if a national or international firm purchases the Fort Garry Hotel.

“It may be that we lose local ownership, but it will still physically be here and the heart will still be here,” he said.

The hotel was listed for sale at a time when there is a huge demand for travel post-pandemic, and many Canadians are choosing to vacation within Canada or seek luxury experiences, Au said.

“Places like the Fort Garry, this is not a low-end (hotel). This is one of our premier spots in Winnipeg,” he said.

chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca

Chris Kitching
Reporter

Chris Kitching is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He began his newspaper career in 2001, with stops in Winnipeg, Toronto and London, England, along the way. After returning to Winnipeg, he joined the Free Press in 2021, and now covers a little bit of everything for the newspaper. Read more about Chris.

Every piece of reporting Chris produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.