Tukisigiarvik will make way for new Iqaluit hotel

When the Tukisigiarvik centre’s lease with the Nova Group of Companies expires, they’ll eventually have to make way for a new hotel that Nova wants to build on this lot in Iqaluit, across the road from the Tammaativvik boarding home, for which Nova is building an extension. (PHOTO BY BETH BROWN)

Iqaluit’s Tukisigiarvik Society must look for a new home when the community centre’s current lease expires in about a year.

The Nova Group of Companies, which owns the building that houses the society, is getting ready to build a new hotel on the same property, across the street from the Tammaativvik boarding home.

Nova plans to construct that hotel in addition to its other Iqaluit ventures, which include the recent purchase of the Discovery hotel and efforts to build an expansion onto the Tammaativvik boarding home.

Tukisigiarvik, which employs elder advisors as staff members, operates as a healing centre, providing traditional skills development, counselling and support for activities such as resumé writing.

The centre also features sewing machines, showers and a kitchen.

To give the society time to regroup, Nova Group has leased the space to Tukisigiarvik for an additional year, with the caveat that there will be no chance to renew the lease.

“We didn’t want them to be put out without anywhere to go,” said Debbie Hannah, the chief operations officer of the Nova Group.

Hannah added that the property occupied by the Tukisigiarvik building is large enough for them get started on the new hotel—even before the society’s current building is moved or torn down.

Materials for the new hotel could be prefabricated, she said.

However, the Nova Group would prefer to see the society housed elsewhere if the Government of Nunavut could issue a request for proposals for new space.

“We’d love to keep them as a client,” Hannah said. “They wanted to stay longer, but it just doesn’t work for everybody.”

The recent closure of Iqaluit’s Hotel Arctic means hotel space is limited in the city.

Because of this, managers of the 90-bed Tammaativvik boarding home have found it harder to house their overflow clients, Hannah said.

“We were looking for a solution,” she said.

The Nova Group has yet to get approval to build an expansion onto the boarding home.

While it waits for the green light, and before the new hotel is built, the plan is to house more Tammaativvik clients at the Discovery.

Nova Group purchased the hotel last week from Tower Arctic Ltd.

Apart from providing added space to the boarding home, the Discovery will continue operating normally.

Its Granite Room restaurant will remain the same, apart from a few menu changes, such as the addition of Alberta bison meat sourced through one of Nova Group’s companies.

“There’s not much change because it’s such a good property,” Hannah said, adding that the management staff is the same and employee contracts have been renewed.

“Nobody has been let go or been told not to come back,” she said.

John Jacobsen, the president and CEO of Tower Arctic, said his father built the hotel in 1955 as a transient centre for Pan American World Airways.

The building was used by a number of airlines, but Tower Arctic repurchased it in 1979 from Nordair.

“That’s when we embarked on making it into a hotel,” Jacobsen said.

The Discovery hotel was “not actively on the market,” but the Nova Group put in “a fair offer,” Jacobsen said.