Nunastar invests in Iqaluit hotels to improve its ‘competitive position’
Astro Hill developer has new hotel under construction, recently completed renovations at ‘the Frob’
Keith Neil, senior superintendent with Birchcliff Development Ltd., and Heidi Cull, director of property management with Nunastar Properties Inc., stand in front of the concrete retaining wall for the Hotel Iqaluit’s elevator shaft. (Photo by Daron Letts)
The owner of Iqaluit’s Frobisher Inn has big plans for the future as it continues to make investments in its properties, including a top-to-bottom renovation of the hotel while construction continues on a new hotel on its Astro Hill property.
The Hotel Iqaluit, seen here in an artist’s rendition, is an 85-room, six-storey building that will be built next to Iqaluit’s second post office. (Photo courtesy of Nunatsar Properties Inc.)
“We essentially took everything back to the walls. It’s new millwork [decorative woodwork], floor, painting, new fixtures,” said Ben Cox, the CEO of Nunastar Properties, Inc., the Edmonton-based company that owns the Frobisher Inn.
The company recently completed a renovation on all 95 guestrooms.
The bathrooms “were completely torn out and replaced,” Cox said. “It looks like a brand-new hotel on the inside.”
Nunastar bought the 57-year-old “Frob,” as it is known locally, in 1999 and expanded it. It was last renovated in 2009, Cox said in an interview Thursday.
The renovations were made to improve the company’s “competitive position” and provide “continual reinvestment in a longtime hotel.”
One of its Iqaluit competitors, the Aqsarniit Hotel and Convention Centre, opened in 2020.
The total cost of the Frob’s renovations, which were made over a four-month period from August to November was, $2.5 million, Cox said in an email.
Now Nunastar is setting its sights on building a new hotel on Astro Hill next to Iqaluit’s second post office, which the company also built.
In February 2025, Iqaluit city council unanimously approved construction of an 85-room, six-storey building.
The Hotel Iqaluit will include 28 rooms that will be set aside for guests planning longer stays, such as people doing rotational work.
Future visitors will be treated to a small restaurant and conference space and outdoor pedestrian walkways.
The interior design was just completed, Cox said.
“It will be on par with anything you see in the south,” he said,
All the structure and building materials were shipped last year.
“When things thaw and the weather improves a little bit, you’ll see the [building] coming out of the ground.”
For now, the area is fenced off and the only visible construction is the base foundation and concrete retaining wall for the elevator shaft, built in fall 2025.
Cox declined to say what the total cost of hotel was. “Not cheap,” he said.
I wonder if the service will get better when they have a new hotel, I always feel like they are doing me a favor when I stay there…. the slightest request is met with a sigh or an eye roll.
Sounds like they will have kitchenettes if they are targetting rotational workers, which should be great to alleviate the need for staff housing.
As far as I know only Capital Suites has rooms like that.
With that said, “Hotel Iqaluit” is a terrible name.
Anaqsarnit isnt a great name either. At least they’ll stop calling it “new hotel” once this new one opens.
Politely disagree. It’s nice to have an Inuktitut name that is fairly easily pronounceable so all people use it, compared to something like Inuulisautinut Niuvirvik (the North Mart store inside the Frob), which is long and complex for non-native speakers to pronounce, so people call it something different altogether.
English has long words hard to pronounce but we Inuit still learn those difficult words within Time
Now it’s to much effort to learn a few words where you have move temporarily