Edmonton's historic Transit Hotel for sale as owner faces retirement

The Transit Hotel in Edmonton.

A Fort Road icon is for sale.

The property including the Transit Hotel, a mainstay on the major northeast Edmonton route at 66 Street since it opened in 1908, is listed for $3.9 million.

Chuck Clubine, a realtor with the Lizotte and Associates firm through which the property was listed a couple of months ago, said "it's the right time" for the owner, who's held it since 1986 and is making retirement plans, to put the hotel property up for sale.

"We see a redevelopment play of sorts, either of historic nature or not, with the hotel itself," Clubine told CTV News Edmonton "It's dated and because of the site, the excess land, there's an opportunity to to do something taller, slimmer, bigger, different, and just take advantage of that corner, or an entrepreneurial group that wants to keep that history intact and wants to put some money into that hotel."

Clubine said the hotel does not have a historical designation but could be secured if desired.

The hotel was revived following a 2020 Kickstarter campaign to restore and reopen it in late December that year with Transit Smokehouse and BBQ restaurant as its main-floor tenant. The hotel had closed in 2017.

The Transit building "is in good condition" for its age, said Clubine. The 29 hotel rooms on the upper floors sit vacant, he said, and estimates they would require between $5,000-$10,000 each in renovation work to "make them good and useable."

"I think if you put that money into each room, you could make that a running hotel," he said. "In its current state ... you could probably rent out some rooms."

The "larger-than-normal" liquor store operation could present an additional business opportunity as the building could be redeveloped to include another business front, Clubine said.

The listing for the five lots and buildings includes the 14,075-square-foot hotel and the 5,000-square-foot liquor store, which bookend three city lots that comprise a parking lot.