Jorgenson takes possession of the hotel on Jan. 2. He paid $900,000 for it.
"I think the properties in this area are undervalued," he said. "You can buy properties in this area now for $35 a square foot. You'd pay that in rent in Calgary in one year."
There are signs the area is on the upswing. Just down the street, at Albert and Notre Dame, immigration lawyer Ken Zaifman is planning similar upgrades to the St. Charles Hotel. Meanwhile, several trendy boutiques have recently sprouted up in the neighbourhood.
"It will be very, very edgy," Jorgenson said of The Albert, noting The Drake, which it is modelling itself after, has sex toys on the room service menu.
But he said he will fight to ensure the hotel doesn't become "too trendy" or mainstream.
"The Royal Albert will never be a place where you can order a $1,000 bottle of champagne. It's never going to happen," he vowed.
The businessman, 40, said he will take his time in refurbishing the hotel, seeking input from Heritage Winnipeg and the community at large.
"I don't think the Royal Albert is the type of business that you just buy and then sit down in a boardroom for eight hours, decide what needs to be done and then you just add water and money and then, poof, it's there," Jorgenson said, noting the hotel's importance to the local music scene.
"And knowing we want to keep it a punk-rock, metal venue, you got to take your time."
Jorgenson said the hotel's second floor will have kitchen facilities and will be available for booking art shows "or overflow from the bar on the weekends and that kind of stuff."
That will create a buffer between the mainfloor bar and the new rooms that will be built on the third and fourth floors -- although he envisions the people booking the rooms will not be "necessarily concerned with having a good night's sleep."
Jorgenson has retained Sam Smith, The Albert's in-house artistic director the past four and a half years, to continue booking musical acts.
"We're pretty much going to stay the course," Smith said of the room's music, which ranges from punk and metal to hip hop, indie rock and "post-rock."
That will be good news to Albert devotees, who feared they would lose an important venue when word got out this summer that it would be turned into a boutique hotel -- generally, a smaller, more intimate, often upscale hotel that is not part of a chain.
"I have the understanding that very little is going to change on the main floor in terms of the club itself. I think that we're all working very hard to maintain the sort of the vibe that this room is famous for," Smith said. |
