Hotel X Toronto

Hotel X Toronto opened on March 20, 2018 at 111 Princes' Boulevard, on the Exhibition Place grounds by Lake Ontario. The independently operated, 404-room hotel is part of the Library Hotel Collection and sits next to the Enercare Centre and Beanfield Centre convention venues. The road to opening took almost two decades. A hotel on the site was first proposed in 1999, three attempts failed, and construction only began in 2013.

The place

The main entrance is at Newfoundland Road and Lake Shore Boulevard West. Exhibition GO station is about a nine-minute walk, and a Lakeshore West train reaches downtown in roughly 15 minutes. The complex has 411 underground parking spaces.

The concept

The complex has three parts: the 30-storey hotel tower, an adjoining sports club called Ten X Toronto, and the restored Stanley Barracks Officers' Quarters, with its foundations. The site was cleared by the British military as a garrison reserve after the War of 1812, and New Fort York, later Stanley Barracks, was built there. The Officers' Quarters later housed the Toronto Maritime Museum for several decades.

The design started with Toronto architect Rocco Maragna's "Hotel in the Garden" scheme. NORR redesigned it in 2012 to win approval from the City's Design Review Panel. Stephen B. Jacobs Group and Andi Pepper Interior Design, both of New York, handled architecture and interiors alongside NORR.

HK Hotels, later the Library Hotel Collection, won the bid in 2008, and a 49-year lease with the City was finalized in 2009. Removing contaminated soil from the site cost CA$5 million, paid by the City. The tower was topped off on April 23, 2015. In 2016 contractors placed liens on the building, and Multiplex Construction was replaced by McKay-Cocker Construction.

Of the 404 rooms, a pre-opening report counted 39 suites.

Dining & wellness

A pre-opening report counted seven restaurants, bars and lounges. Event listings name the X-Lounge at the three-level SkyBar, a Lobby Bar, Café X, a Starbucks and in-room dining; sources disagree on what the SkyBar is called.

The rooftop pool operates year-round. Other facilities are an art gallery, a cinema and a screening room, two ballrooms with further meeting space, and the squash and tennis courts of Ten X, which one source puts at 90,000 square feet including its spa.