Vancouver developer goes all-in on office-to-hotel conversions

Reliance president and CEO Jon Stovell outside 1111 West Hastings Street, which is expected to be converted into a hotel, in Vancouver on June 15. Photo by NICK PROCAYLO /10111905A

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There’s been a lot of talk about converting office buildings to residential or hotel space, but not much action.

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Reliance Properties is actually doing it.

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The Vancouver company recently announced plans to convert two office buildings to hotels, one at 1111 West Hastings St. in Vancouver, the other at 780 Blanshard St. in Victoria.

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The Hastings Street building was built in 1966 and is 13 storeys, the four-storey Victoria building was built in 1949 and has an elegant art deco/art moderne design.

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Reliance president and CEO Jon Stovell said both buildings are well-suited to conversion to hotels.

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“I would say that out of 20 office buildings you might look at with that idea in mind, there might only be one or two that actually makes sense,” he said. “There’s a whole bunch of things that have to work perfectly. The amount of upgrading required, the floor plate size, the way the elevators are configured, the way the windows are configured, the ceiling heights.

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“It’s a very technical thing, whether or not it works (for conversion).”

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The other impetus is that there’s a shortage of hotel rooms, and these buildings could be converted relatively quickly and open by 2029. Their locations are both in prime tourist areas.

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“The Vancouver and Victoria markets are the best performing hotel markets in Canada, in terms of occupancy and growth of average daily rate, and so you know a bunch of (hotels) will get built,” said Stovell. “You see a lot of developers trying to pivot their sites to a hotel right now. How many will get built? We don’t know. I think there’s a chance that this cycle, we might build 2,000 rooms.”

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The building at 1111 West Hastings will be 180 rooms and developed with Quebec’s Germain Hotels. The Victoria project is 126 rooms, and replaces an earlier Reliance proposal for a hotel and highrise condo on the site.

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Reliance Property president and CEO Jon Stovell outside 1111 West Hastings St. in Vancouver, BC. Photo by NICK PROCAYLO /10111905A

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The Hastings building was purchased for $70 million in March 2025, the Victoria building for $14.66 million in 2019.

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Stovell doesn’t have a cost for the conversion but thinks it could be $100 to $150 less per square foot than building from scratch. When you factor in the cost of buying the building, he thinks it will be comparable with new construction.

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“Effectively the overall costs of land, the existing building, plus reno costs … aren’t materially less than building new,” he said.

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One of the keys to being suitable for conversion is the footplate.

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“The best type of hotel floor plate is like a train car or shoebox, with a hallway down the middle and rooms on each side,” he explains. “If you’re going to do a centre-core hotel, like (1111 West Hastings) is with the elevators and stairs in the middle, you don’t want it to be much bigger than about a 10,000-or-11,000-square-foot floor plate.