Huge hotel with two 30-storey towers approved for busy tourist area in Niagara Falls

Niagara Falls’s bustling tourist district is set to welcome a significant new hotel that will boast two 30-storey towers, a four-storey podium and over 500 hotel rooms.

The development, proposed by a numbered company, was approved at a recent city council meeting where several councillors remarked that it was the first new hotel application to come to council in at least 16 years. 

At the meeting, Max Fedchyshak of NPG Planning Solutions made a brief presentation on behalf of the developer and said that the proposed property will be built on lands in the city’s Clifton Hill and Fallsview Tourism Districts and will be about a 15-minute walk from the Falls themselves. 

A city staff report about the development, which will take shape at 5234-5276, 5278 and 5284 Ferry St. and 5928 Clark Ave., recommended the project be approved and the requested zoning amendments be granted. In the report, staff said the plan conforms to provincial, regional and city policies and will create jobs.

At the meeting, Fedchyshak said the project is anticipated to create 548 jobs—roughly one new job per hotel room. 

Once complete, the hotel will feature a total of 548 hotel rooms spread out between the two towers. The site of the future development is currently home to several businesses, with Niagara’s Best Inn (which houses two restaurants on the ground floor) located at the corner of Ferry Street and Clark Avenue, two commercial buildings east of the motel on Ferry Street, a four-storey Quality Inn on the northeastern corner of the site (which has a Hooters on the ground level) and a two-storey building that’s home to Inchins Indian Kitchen. 

The report says the hotel’s towers will be connected by a four-storey podium that will boast commercial businesses on the ground floor. Over 300 parking spaces will be available for visitors within the same podium, and one tower will boast a lobby, additional commercial space and a restaurant with an outdoor patio. 

The second tower will feature a lobby and loading bay entrances. 

The report also says a rooftop garden and terrace are proposed above the podium. 

At the meeting, a resident speaking on behalf of existing tenants asked if the city had considered the impact the development would have on people the new hotel would likely displace. 

“My question to the council is are they going to take into consideration that eight of the tenants will be thrown out of the property if this gets approved? We have gone through the difficult times of COVID, we have started to set up our businesses and it’s a very hard time when all of that is being done,” the resident said. 

“Just a question.” 

City planner Nick DeBenedetti told the resident that he should discuss concerns about the future of his lease with the current landlord, and Coun. Ruth-Ann Nieuwesteeg said she hoped there could be discussions around potentially creating space in the new development for existing tenants. 

Nieuwesteeg and Coun. Mona Patel both praised the application, calling the arrival of a new hotel “exciting.”

“It’s a beautiful building that will create 548 jobs and spruce up the area. I drive by there all the time, it’s going to make the whole area look beautiful,” Patel, who moved the motion to approve the application, told council. 

Nieuwesteeg, who seconded the motion, called the development “extremely impressive.” 

“When was the last time we had a hotel actually built in Niagara Falls?” she asked. 

The development was approved unanimously.