I am not surprised.
It took over 8 years to build, was built and managed by people who have very little experience in the field and the hotel strangely hadalmost nomarketing or PR for it, other than a couple newspaper articles andanoddhotel award from aEuropean magazine before the hotel was operating. All of the press and whatever PR they have were purely fluff and had no merit nor substance behind it.
I have been in the hotel and restaurant and it's very beautifully designed, but there was something not quite right about it.
All of Rhed's five other developments has failed as well:
- Langston Hall 1 which was marketed in 2008 and was supposed to be the sister building to the Templar, but was stalledand eventually cancelled in 2013 with nota shovel in the ground. It was over 60% sold and the purchasers deposits were held on for that long while the rest of the city experienced the biggest real estate booms ever. Word has it that the property was being pitched to a developer who has plans for a luxury rental building.
- Langston Hall 2 was supposed to be an impressively thin and tall with only two 2-storey house-sized units per floor. It was a stunning design but made no financial or marketing sense as 5-star residences from Four Seasons, Trump, Shangri-La, and RitzCarlton has languished and over saturated the super high end condo market.The property was eventually sold conditionally to a developer.
- Citizen House is located on Peel Street near the Gladstone Hotel and surrounded byabig condo/retaildevelopment by Streetcar Developments (Carnaby Row). It's a small 3-story house of less than 2,000 sq.ft. that was supposed to be a satellite extended stay villa for the Templar Hotel. It was in the works for more than five years and the rusting steel skeleton remains untouched fora couple years.
- Wellington Street Lofts was originally supposed to be an exclusive loft building of just six lofts converted from a small 2 storey warehouse building with aone storey addition, just west of Bathurst. Never marketed, but apparently half of the units were sold. The building was later changed to be an events centre and banquet hall for the Templar Hotel. Construction has been halted for the lasttwo years.
- Templar Lake on the Mountain in Prince Edward County was supposed to be an ambitious lake resort complete with their own fleet of custom designed electric/solar powered power boats housed in an all-glass boat house. The Langston Hall sales centre, which is deteriorating and still sitting on the Langston Hall site was supposed to be moved here to become a welcome centre.
