| The Westin Harbour Castle Toronto | |
|---|---|
 The Westin Harbour Castle | |
 | |
| General information | |
| Address | 1 Harbour Square Toronto, Ontario M5J 1A6 |
| Coordinates | 43°38′26″N79°22′33″W / 43.640641°N 79.375716°W |
| Opened | 1975 |
| Technical details | |
| Floor count | 33 |
| Other information | |
| Number of rooms | 977 |
| Website | |
| Official website | |
The Westin Harbour Castle Toronto is a large hotel opened in 1975 on the waterfront of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is part of the Westin Hotels chain within Marriott International.
The hotel was built by the Campeau Corporation, after Canadian real estate tycoon Robert Campeau was given permission by the city of Toronto in 1972 to turn industrial land on the city's waterfront into a 30-acre residential and commercial development. [1] The 38-story [2] twin-towered 963-room hotel opened in April 1975 [3] as the Harbour Castle Hotel. Cut off from the city by the Gardiner Expressway, [1] the hotel was at first unsuccessful, with an occupancy rate of only 46.2% in its first year and an even lower rate in its second. [4] Hilton International assumed management in 1977, and the hotel was renamed the Toronto Hilton Harbour Castle. [5]
Hong Kong business magnate Li Ka-Shing purchased the hotel from Campeau in 1981. [6] In a complicated management swap in 1987, Hilton Hotels traded operation of the property for the Westin Hotel on University Avenue. The Harbour Castle became the Harbour Castle Westin, while the former Westin became the Toronto Hilton. [7] Li sold the property to Westin Hotels in 1990.
Westin sold the hotel to the Public Sector Pension Investment Board in 2005, as part of a portfolio of five Canadian Westin hotels in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Ottawa. PSP resold the five hotels to Starwood Capital Group in 2013 for CA$765 Million, at which point the Harbour Castle was valued in land registry documents at CA$146 million. [8] Starwood Capital put the Harbour Castle up for sale in January 2016. [8] When they sold their remaining Canadian Westin properties in 2018, it was reported that the Harbour Castle had sold for nearly CA$400 million. [9]
The twin-towered 34-storey building sits along Toronto Harbour and now offers 977 rooms after a renovation in 2007. The hotel features three restaurants, including The Mizzen, Toula and The Chartroom. The hotel also features the Harbour coffee bar, and Savoury, a private chef's table. Toula, a rooftop restaurant located on the southeast tower, once revolved, but this ceased in 2001. [10] The restaurant offers a view of the lake; and, on a clear day, one can see Rochester, New York. [10]
A convention centre building is attached to the hotel on the north side of Queens Quay and is accessible via an elevated glass walkway. The convention centre offers 31 rooms, including the 24,990 square feet (2,322 m2) Metropolitan Ballroom. [11] The hotel is also connected to Harbour Square condos with a glass walkway.
The hotel is located along the Yonge Street slip and shares space with the semi-retired island ferry Trillium and is adjacent to the Jack Layton Ferry Terminal.
The Westin Harbour Castle Hotel has been used for several ceremonies, including the presenting of the 32nd Genie Awards. [12]
Hilton Hotels & Resorts is a global brand of full-service hotels and resorts and the flagship brand of American multinational hospitality company Hilton.
Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide, Inc. was one of the largest companies that owned, operated, franchised and managed hotels, resorts, spas, residences, and vacation ownership properties. It was acquired by Marriott International in 2016.
The Toronto waterfront is the lakeshore of Lake Ontario in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It spans 46 kilometres between the mouth of Etobicoke Creek in the west and the Rouge River in the east.
Queens Quay is a prominent street in the Harbourfront neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The street was originally commercial in nature due to the many working piers along the waterfront; parts of it have been extensively rebuilt in since the 1970s with parks, condominiums, retail, as well as institutional and cultural development.
Queen's Quay Terminal is a condominium apartment, office and retail complex in the Harbourfront neighbourhood in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was originally built in 1927 as a marine terminal with office, warehouse and cold-storage facilities. When shipping to Toronto declined in the 1960s and 1970s, the building was bought by the Government of Canada to be repurposed along with a section of the industrial waterfront. The Terminal Building itself was rebuilt in the 1980s with the addition of four floors of residential above the original facility, which was converted into retail and office uses. The cold storage wing was demolished and its plant building became The Power Plant gallery and Harbourfront Centre Theatre.
Queens Quay is an underground streetcar station of the Toronto streetcar system in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the only underground streetcar station that is not part of or connected to a Toronto subway station. It was opened in 1990 as part of the former Harbourfront LRT route. The station is now served by the 509 Harbourfront, 510 Spadina daytime routes and the 310 Spadina night route.
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Captain John's Harbour Boat Restaurant was a restaurant and banquet hall in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. For most of its existence it was located in the MS Jadran, a former Adriatic passenger ship that was permanently docked at the foot of Yonge Street at 1 Queens Quay West on Toronto's waterfront. The ship was moored off on a small laneway at the foot of Yonge Street called Captain John's Pier. Once a prestige destination, the restaurant was open every day of the year, including all major holidays such as Christmas and New Year's Day, for almost 40 years. When it opened, the waterfront was an industrial portland. The Harbourfront redevelopment turned the area into a recreational destination for residents and tourists and a residential neighbourhood; Captain John's helped begin a gentrification process that ultimately claimed it as a victim.
Campeau Corporation was a Canadian real estate development and investment company founded by entrepreneur Robert Campeau. It was infamous from its ultimately unsuccessful acquisitions of American department store holding companies Allied Stores in 1986 and Federated Department Stores in 1988. The whole organization soon was mired in bankruptcy and spurred the decline of the regional department store.
Westin Hotels & Resorts is an American upscale hotel chain owned by Marriott International. As of June 30, 2020, the Westin Brand has 226 properties with 82,608 rooms in multiple countries in addition to 58 hotels with 15,741 rooms in the pipeline.
The Westin St. Francis, formerly known as St. Francis Hotel, is a hotel located on Powell and Geary Streets in San Francisco, adjacent to the whole western edge of Union Square. The two 12-story south wings of the hotel were built in 1904, and the double-width north wing was completed in 1913, initially as apartments for permanent guests. This section is referred to as the Landmark Building on the hotel's website. The 32-story, 120 m (390 ft) tower to the rear, referred to as the Tower Building, which was completed in 1972, features exterior glass elevators that offer panoramic views of the bay and the square below, making the St. Francis one of the largest hotels in the city, with more than 1,254 rooms and suites.
Federated Hermes Tower is a 358-foot-tall (109 m) skyscraper in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The building is part of Liberty Center, a two-building complex which also includes the Westin Convention Center Hotel. It was completed in 1986 and has 27 floors and 530,000 square feet (49,000 m2) of space. It is the 16th tallest building in the city and houses the corporate headquarters of Federated Hermes.
Marc Thuet is a chef based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, who most recently appeared in his second season of a docu-reality TV series called Conviction Kitchen in which he trains 12 ex-cons to run a restaurant in Toronto.
Corbin Tomaszeski is a Canadian restaurant consultant and celebrity chef based in Toronto, Ontario. He is known for his appearances on the Food Network shows Restaurant Makeover and Dinner Party Wars. He graduated from the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology. Tomaszeski was formerly the executive chef at the Westin Harbour Castle Hotel and conference center in Toronto.
The Westin Bayshore is a hotel overlooking Coal Harbour in Vancouver, British Columbia.
South Core is a neighbourhood located in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The South Core occupies the eastern portions of the Railway Lands. The remodeling and restoration of Union Station and the construction of a new wave of business and condominium towers is central to this area's forecast growth.
Forecasters expect the downtown population to grow 80 per cent to 130,000 by 2031. With the financial district just to the north and the new high-rise South Core on the other side, Union is right at the centre.
The Westin Convention Center Pittsburgh is a 26-story hotel in Downtown Pittsburgh, with a prominent position in the area adjacent to the David L. Lawrence Convention Center and the Cultural District. The hotel is connected via an enclosed walkway to the convention center. The building is part of Liberty Center, a two building complex which also includes the Federated Tower. Liberty Center was developed and built by Liberty Center Ventures, a partnership of Forest City Enterprises and Jos. L. Muscarelle, Inc. and opened in December 1986. In August 2013, Liberty Center was sold by Forest City to Starwood Capital Group for $135 million.
The Jack Layton Ferry Terminal is the ferry slip for Toronto Island ferries operated by the City of Toronto Parks, Forestry and Recreation Division. Three ferry routes provide transportation between mainland Toronto and Centre Island, Hanlan's Point and Ward's Island in the Toronto Islands, with levels of service to each destination differing depending on time of year. The terminal is located in the Toronto Harbour, behind the Westin Harbour Castle Hotel and adjacent to Harbour Square Park. It is south of Bay Street and Queens Quay in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Harbour Square Park is a park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada right on the Toronto harbour. It is next to the Harbour Square condos, the Jack Layton Ferry Terminal and the Westin Harbour Castle. It is south of Queens Quay and adjacent to the Queens Quay streetcar station. It contains a boardwalk and a permanent public art installation.
The Westin Georgetown, Washington, D.C. is a luxury Postmodernist-style hotel located at 2350 M Street NW in the West End neighborhood of Washington, D.C., in the United States. Completed in 1984, the hotel was originally known as The Regent of Washington, D.C., but changed its name in 1985 to The Grand. After the hotel's owners were declared bankrupt in October 1994, the corporate predecessors to Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide purchased the property in November 1995. Westin Hotels partnered with the new owners and rebranded the property first as The Westin Hotel in January 1996, then as The Westin Grand in 1999, and finally as The Westin Georgetown in 2010. Since 2011, The Westin Georgetown has been AAA-rated four diamonds.
