A former Traveller’s Inn Motel property damaged by fire in 2016 has been listed for sale by Victoria landlord and city council candidate Robin Kimpton.

 

Priced at $18 million, the half-acre lot at 760 Queens Avenue near Bay Street contains a four-storey motel complex-turned-affordable rental building with nearly 90-suites.

 

In 2017 just under $1.5 million in permits were pulled from the City of Victoria for restoration purposes, although it is not immediately clear whether the property was fully remediated or remains in need of repairs. According to sales documents the building was “closed without any income in 2018.”

 

“With respect to development, the property is in the direct line of fire for the expansion of downtown Victoria’s downtown core,” reads the listing description represented by real-estate agent Robert Brown. “Permitted uses in this zoning include, but are not limited to: transient accommodation, multiple dwellings, and business offices or professional offices as well as retail stores.”

 

Despite the $18 million sale price, the holding is valued by Kimpton and Brown as a $20,808,000 “revenue stream.” A further analysis or description of the revenue stream is not publicly disclosed. Revenue streams aside, BC Assessment last assessed the land at $2,846,000 and the building at $1,923,000, totalling $4,139,000. In 2017 the parcel was assessed at a combined rate of $3,933,900. 

 

760 Queens Avenue was once part of a local motel empire operated by businessman John Asfar who began liquidating his substantial real-estate holdings a decade ago as part of bankruptcy proceedings. At the time Asfar had announced that he would be donating millions of dollars to charity and moving to Africa to focus on humanitarian efforts.

 

In 2010 Kimpton purchased 760 Queens Avenue for a reported sum of $4.2 million.

 

The motel's conversion into rental apartments and the conversion of other Traveller's Inn properties is part of a broader phenomenon throughout the Capital Region that has seen a significant number of transient accommodations removed from the market.

 

Citified's 2016 analysis of the Capital's shrinking hotel room inventory showed that nearly 700 high-profile hotel rooms had been lost since 2010 and the surge in AirBnB short-term vacation rentals was a likely result of declining lodging options. The lost room total has risen since 2016 while the City of Victoria has enacted regulations governing short-term vacation rentals and significantly limiting their presence. C

 

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