By Phil Egan for the Sarnia Journal
My recent research into Sarnia’s old inns and hotels revealed plans for a great hotel in Sarnia that never got off the ground.
It was 1929 – a year that would dash plans all across North America as the stock market collapsed that October. Over four days the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost $30 billion, the equivalent of $396 billion today. It was the precursor to the Great Depression.
But prior to that October, the mood across the continent and in business had been buoyant. Sarnia was no exception.
I stumbled across the story while at Lambton County Archives. An old hotel file revealed a copy of The Sarnia Citizen, published “from time to time in the interests of Sarnia” by the Sarnia Development Company, Limited.
The Citizen was grandly announcing plans for a nine-storey hotel to be built in downtown Sarnia. The announcement of the new 112-room property was being revealed following “months of negotiations.” Following construction, the owners of the Hotel London had agreed to rent and manage the striking new Sarnia hotel for a period of 15 years, which would cost an estimated $545,000 to build.
Long gone, the old Hotel London on Dundas Street was London’s biggest hotel in the 1920s.
The new hotel would tower over every other structure in Sarnia and become the most dramatic structure on Sarnia’s skyline. Travellers on the hotel’s highest floors would command a stunning view of the river and Port Huron. A large electric sign on the roof would make the hotel stand out to traffic on the river and from Port Huron.
The main floor reception area would include a coffee shop and offices for the Chamber of Commerce. The second floor would feature a banquet hall, washrooms and private meeting rooms, as well as a lounge. Seven accommodation floors would each contain 16 bedrooms, and would rent for as low as $2.50/ day and as high as $5/ day.
The optimistic occupancy rates were estimated to be 95% from mid-June to mid-September, and 70% for the balance of the year. Annual revenue estimates included over $77,000 from room rentals, $3,000 from the sale of cigars, newspapers and sundry items, and $8,000 in coffee shop profits.
“We’ve talked a lot. Let’s Act Now!” concluded the special issue of The Citizen, which was designed to excite the citizenry and to attract investors to the project. But a mere four months later, the market collapsed.
Just as in our own lifetime, the 9/11 attacks changed plans everywhere, so the stock market collapsed similarly wreaked havoc on major plans affecting business and industry for decades.
Sarnia’s big nine-storey hotel was one of those casualties.