Alt Hotel plans moving ahead for St. John's harbourfront location

Plans for a new hotel in downtown St. John's on the waterfront are moving ahead.

Montreal-based Groupe Germaine will be building an Alt Hotel on a long-vacant lot at the corner of Water Street and Prescott Street.

• New 'chic' hotel planned for Prescott-Water near St. John's harbour

The City of St. John's had received an application for the proposed hotel in September, and the hotel company issued a release Tuesday that those plans will be moving ahead.

According to the release, the hotel will have fourstoreys and 148 rooms that will overlook the Narrows and downtown St. John's.

The location is the grounds of the circa-1800's Marshall Brothers cellar, the only remaining marker of the former Marshall Brothers store that was in operation in the mid-1920s.

The company said it plansto move ahead with "respectful architectural planning" to ensure the outline of the former cellar "will be incorporated into the hotel's exterior landscaping and paving making it a celebrated feature and effectively allowing the old and the new to coexist in harmony."

In addition, the hotel will have a "feature wall" that will display materials excavated from the cellar, as well as historical pictures and text.

The hotel will feature 4,000 square feet of meeting space, and the company said the location's proximity to the St. John's Convention Centre, which is still undergoing renovations, made for an ideal location for the development.

The company is aiming for a 2017 opening.

This will be the second Alt Hotel location in Atlantic Canada. The company opened a location atHalifax Stanfield International Airport in 2013.