Hotels, restaurants, parks and other cool new attractions are coming to downtown

It may not feel like it now, but good things are on the horizon. The first in our series on the post-pandemic downtown rebound.

Two glitzy new hotels will welcome tourists back to town

When travel finally returns, CN Tower–weary tourists will need somewhere cushy to lay their heads—and two luxe hotel chains are stepping in to provide the necessary TLC. First up: the city’s inaugural W Hotel. Housed in a former Marriott, the hotel received a $40-million makeover from Architects Alliance and SidLee, with funky interiors that riff on Toronto’s architecture and graffiti. It now has 254 rooms, 3,300 square feet of fitness facilities, 4,800 square feet of meeting space, and a professional recording studio for local musicians and podcasters dubbed the W Sound Suite. (Studios at other W hotels have hosted St. Vincent and the R&B singer-songwriter Yuna.) There’s a Mediterranean-inspired rooftop bar and restaurant from Chopped Canada winner Keith Pears, who is overseeing the W’s coffee house and bar program as well.

Also reopening soon—hopefully along with the border—is the fabled Park Hyatt in Yorkville, a notorious literary hangout; past regulars at the rooftop bar include Mordecai Richler and Margaret Atwood, who even namedropped the hotel in The Edible Woman and Cat’s Eye. The patio was shrunken down during a ’90s renovation, but Oxford Properties is restoring the bar to its former grandeur—it will now be dubbed the Writers Room, and the developers are currently scouring eBay for rare Atwood first editions to display. The heritage south tower, meanwhile, will house luxury rental units, and the north tower will contain 219 hotel rooms and a new Stillwater Spa.

Read the full article in Toronto Life