Thorunn Howatt
Northern News Services

Iqaluit (Mar 04/02) - The walls could come tumbling down on Iqaluit's Toonoonik Hotel. It's an exciting venture but it means 17 fewer hotel rooms and one less restaurant for the Arctic Winter Games.

Owners closed down the hotel more than a week ago. Now they are deciding between fixing mechanical problems in the building or tearing it down altogether and replacing it with something spectacular. Either way, it's going to cost a lot of money.

"The building is pretty old and it has a lot of major plumbing problems and this time of the year it freezes up quite frequently," said Toonoonik Sahoonik Co-operative's Dave Slaney.

So rather than fix problems day after day the hotel was closed and owners are working on a strategy. The Toonoonik Hotel and restaurant is owned by the Pond Inlet co-operative.

"We never did take any bookings for the Arctic Winter Games and any people that we did have in there were provided with notice long before we closed the building," said Slaney.

The closure couldn't come at a worse time. The City of Iqaluit hopes to be bursting at the seams in a few weeks when athletes and tourists pour into the city for the winter games. Unfortunately, Toonoonik will miss out on a chance to hang a no vacancy sign.

"The impact will never be regained again," said Slaney. The alternative is unthinkable, he said. "It would be a pretty awful thing to have people booked into rooms and have to ask them to vacate the premises with nowhere else for them to stay."

So the owners decided to bite the bullet and close now rather than possibly shut down when the hotel is full. The 24 employees working at the hotel, gift shop, restaurant and truck rental office were all given temporary lay-off notices. Only security personnel are on site. The heat and utilities have been turned off and all the pipes drained, waiting for a verdict.

"Obviously it's an indefinite layoff because if the mechanical companies come back and tell me it's going to cost $200,000 to do the repair and maintenance then obviously I won't be doing the repair," said Slaney.

The co-operative has been sitting on plans to build a new $7-million, 75-room project for about two years but wanted to make sure it could pay for the project. Plans include banquet and catering facilities as well as retail space on the bottom floor.

"It's been a venture that we have been planning to do for a couple of years and it's not a dead issue. It's just a matter of making the right deal at the right time," said Slaney. Maybe this is the right time, he said.

Work on the project was supposed to take place last fall but Toonoonik wanted to make sure leases were secured in advance.

Slaney hoped the hotel wouldn't be closed for more than five weeks, but it depends on estimates from plumbing contractors. And work quotations still aren't in yet.

"Every year we have invested maybe $15,000 or $25,000 just repairing pipe damage," said Slaney.