An Earthquake Launches a 5-Star Hotel.

By Pat Brennan.

?A minor earthquake has given Niagara Falls an opportunity for its first 5-Star luxury hotel.

The huge Toronto Hydro Power Station nudging Niagara River just above Horseshoe Falls has been sitting idle and abandoned for 50 years since a minor earthquake shook the building in April, 1974.

The slight movement of the ground bumped the drive shafts out of sync between the turbines down in the water, turning the generators high above on the production floor.

Now Pearle Hospitality proposes converting the majestic power station into a luxury hotel with world-class entertainment and culinary features.

The Toronto Power Station is considered the most impressive building in Niagara Falls and the finest example in Canada of Beaux-Arts style architecture. It has been declared a National Historic Site.

It opened in 1906 and was designed by renowned Toronto architect E.J. Lennox, who also designed Toronto’s old city hall, plus Casa Loma and several other iconic Toronto buildings.

?Leanne Ciancone and her brother Aaron run Pearle Hospitality, a chain of restaurants and resorts started by their grandmother Pearle in 1936. They’ve pumped millions into restoring historic stone buildings and converting them into renowned destination restaurants and resorts – such as the Elora Inn Resort built on the Grand River in 1851 and the Cambridge Mills restaurant, also on the Grand River, built in downtown Cambridge (Galt) in 1863.

Their Ancaster Mill is another limestone structure built in 1844 up on top of Hamilton Mountain.

?Pearle started a chain of restaurants in 2010 called Earth To Table with two locations in Hamilton and one in Guelph. That chain is now called Bardo.

Their Earth To Table farm hosts many weddings at its 97-acre farm in Flamborough Township near Clappison’s Corners. Pearle recently opened the luxury Pearle Hotel on the Burlington waterfront adjacent to its popular Spencer's Restaurant. The hotel is renowned for its spa facilities.

Now the brother and sister have committed to pump more than $200 million into converting the Toronto Power Station into a 5-Star luxury hotel with world-class entertainment and culinary features.

It’ll take three years of renovations before the first dinner guest is seated in the summer of 2027.

VG Architects of Toronto have been commissioned to change the interior look of the 500,000 square foot building from an industrial entity to a spectacular tourist destination.

And it won’t cost you anything to explore the finished project. Pearle wants free-access public viewing platforms on the roof from where visitors can look down along Niagara’s rapids to the brink of the Horseshoe Falls.

The construction and operation of the finished hotel and restaurant is expected to create 9,500 0jobs, according to Niagara Parks CEO David Adames. He said the restoration of the power plant will mean a $300 million boost to the GDP for Niagara Parks.

Volcano Discovery, an association that records earthquakes and volcanic eruptions all around the world, estimates there have been 36 earthquakes in the region of Niagara Falls since the beginning of 2023. Only one was greater than 3 on the earthquake measuring scale.

In May, 1956 an earthquake destroyed the Schoellkopf Power Station on the American side of the Niagara River. Schoellkopf was the world’s largest power station at the time and the quake killed one employee at the plant. Its ruins are a tourist attraction today.

ReplyReply allForward

Add reaction