Nova Centre unveils 'luxury' hotel chain making Atlantic Canada debut

The Nova Centrewill become home to Sutton Place'sfirst property in Atlantic Canada.

The Nova Centre, which includes the new Halifax Convention Centre, opened in December, but had not said who its hotel tenantwould be.

Tom Gaglardi, CEO of the hotel chain, said the high-end hotel will have 262 "luxury" guest rooms, a restaurantand underground parking.

"It's been a tough market to find the right way to get in," he said Thursday. "We've had our eyes on Halifax for about six or seven years. We finally found the opportunity. We looked at acquiring other hotels, we looked at everything. It's a very desirable market and it's a hard market to enter at some level."

Gaglardiis based in Vancouver andalso owns the Dallas Stars NHL team.Gaglardi's family owns Northland Properties Corporation, the umbrella company that owns Sutton Place, as well as Sandman Hotels and Sandman Signature Hotels.

Sutton Place has hotels in Vancouver, Edmonton and Revelstoke Mountain Resort in B.C. It's building hotels in Calgary, Winnipeg and Texas. Gaglardisaid the companyplans to open the Halifax hotel in spring 2019.

Gaglardi said the availability of land was one of the biggest factors making Halifax "tough." He added he thought the convention centre will be a big draw to Halifax.

"I think it certainly leaves you punching way above your weight class, given you're only a city of 400,000 people," he said.

"I think with this facility, we'll have a chance to land a lot of American business that we otherwise wouldn't have seen. This makes Halifax a real contender on the small to medium centre stage."

Nova Centre 70% full, says developer

The $500-million Nova Centre broke ground in 2012.The one-million-square-foot space is designed tohouse the convention centre, luxury hotel, and business and retail space.

Developer Joe Ramia said the Nova Centre is now more than 70 per cent full of tenancies, and he expects to announce the names of the new tenants in the coming months.

Ramia said the unrented 30 per cent is mainly office and restaurant space.