New hotel and conference centre will bring energy to downtown Mississauga: mayor

A new hotel and conference centre that would help attract more people — and energy — to Mississauga’s downtown core is a focal point of Mayor Carolyn Parrish’s big plans for a revitalized City Centre.

Parrish, who’s wasted no time getting comfortable in the mayor’s seat since claiming a byelection win in June, envisions such a development taking shape directly across the street from her city hall office — right next to the Living Arts Centre on city-owned land that would be leased to an interested builder.

Short on details at the moment, the hotel/conference centre concept is one of several large-scale projects the mayor hopes will come to fruition sooner rather than later. The idea, Parrish told INsauga.com in a recent one-on-one interview, is to bring badly needed vibrancy back to the downtown area of Canada’s seventh-largest city.

Dozens of highrises, both condos and offices, tower over Square One, the Mississauga Civic Centre, Hazel McCallion Central Library, numerous restaurants and the LAC.

But something important is missing, observes Mississauga’s mayor, who speaks of her dream to “fix the downtown” by making it a more welcoming destination.

“The downtown is boring. We have nothing exciting going on here until the festivals start (in spring and summer),” Parrish said. “The City Centre has languished for a very long time; nothing’s happened here.”

Beyond adding some 500 seats to the Main Auditorium at the Living Arts Centre in addition to other ongoing renovations at the city’s largest cultural and entertainment venue, Parrish says building a hotel and conference centre on the southeast corner of the LAC site is an exciting idea.

“A couple of good restaurants” inside the conference centre and a prime location just across the courtyard from the LAC would create an attractive vibe for visitors to the area.

The mayor says it would be a merging of both business and fun, not unlike the feel of Niagara Falls back in the day.

“That’s kind of the concept, only we’ll do it in a more Mississauga way,” Parrish said.

As she looks to spearhead a revitalization of the downtown area, the mayor also envisions a 7,500-seat soccer stadium — at an estimated cost of $32 million — and an urban school that would house kindergarten-to-Grade 8 students in the not-so-distant future.