Regina Saskatchewan - Little more than a year after being acquired for $32.8 million by Winnipeg-based Temple Hotels Inc., Regina's iconic Hotel Saskatchewan has been acquired by a Toronto-based real estate investment trust for $37 million.
 
InnVest Real Estate Investment Trust announced Tuesday it has acquired interests in two hotel properties, totalling 799 rooms, for $70 million, including a 100 percent interest in the Hotel Saskatchewan and a 33 percent interest in the Courtyard by Marriott in downtown Toronto for $33 million.
 
Hotel Saskatchewan, a 224-room hotel in downtown Regina, is re-branding from a Radisson property to the Marriott Autograph Collection with Marriott Hotels, which will be completed in late 2015, the company said in a news release.
 
The $37-million deal is expected to close in September.
 
Drew Coles, president and CEO of InnVest, said Hotel Saskatchewan is "a top-positioned asset" in a province where InnVest is under-represented.
 
"Hotel Saskatchewan is a dominant hotel in downtown Regina that provides us with geographic diversification in a province where we are looking to increase our exposure," Coles said in the release.
 
While the hotel will be changing hands, it will continue its affiliation with Marriott.
 
After acquiring the Hotel Saskatchewan in April 2014, Temple Hotels Inc. of Winnipeg affiliated the hotel with the Autograph Collection by Marriott.
 
In December, Temple announced the stately 88-year-old hotel at 2125 Victoria Avenue would undergo extensive renovations to revitalize guest rooms, public spaces, and restaurants at a cost of $6 million, as part of the hotel's affiliation with Marriott Hotels.
 
Built in 1927, the Hotel Saskatchewan was one of a chain of hotels constructed and owned by the Canadian Pacific Railway.
 
CP held onto it until about 1980, when it sold the hotel to entrepreneurs Patrick Waters and Peter Gundy.
 
During the 1990s, the hotel was owned by an immigrant investment fund, First Canadian Capital Corp., which acquired the hotel in 1990 for $7.3 million.

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