New plans for an iconic downtown hotel have been forwarded to City Hall.
A major change was adding 49 for-sale units to the top floors, replacing old plans to have 25 long-term rentals.
Westcorp VP Gail Temple says part of the rationale for that change was hearing interest in buying from the community.
"Partly that the market also changed enough that even lenders would look at our project, and we knew that we were going to be asked to sell those units," she said.
"And because of the additional cost of the project, and having to go underground, the way to make this project work was to move to that direction, and adopt the model where you sold off some of the units."
Going underground is what Temple says the biggest change has been.
Previous plans called for 242 parking stalls, with most of them in above-ground garages.
Current plans have over half of the 289 stalls underground, which has also lead to the design of a taller building.
Temple says that future projects will mean the updated proposal for 32 storeys won't make the building stick out like a sore thumb.
"While it might stand out now in this proposal, with so few buildings around it that have any height whatsoever, it will perhaps seem a little bit on its own," she said.
"Over time, it will not seem on its own at all, and in fact will really be the anchor of that downtown cluster of towers. Is there potentially more acceptance now? We think there may be. But we also think that people fundamentally seem to support a hotel on that site on the waterfront."
She says those future projects would include the 36-storey One Water Street condo proposal, and the approved 20-storey ELLA condos at Ellis and Lawrence.
Back in 2014, council approved Westcorp's plans for a 24-storey hotel, across from Kerry Park at the Queensway.
But the project never broke ground, with the company scrapping its plans to draft brand new designs.
Temple acknowledges local skepticism, but says the decision to postpone was the right one.
"The reality was, we were already starting to question whether or not going in the ground was going to be wise, because we were afraid we were not going to be able to deliver the hotel experience that we needed to, in order to have a successful project," he said.
"Sometimes the smartest thing you can possibly do is to accept the loss of the money for those drawings and all that work at that point in time, and don't build the wrong thing."
Westcorp is hoping to get council approval to start construction by next summer, and estimates that work to take about 30 months.