The Municipality of Chatham-Kent (“Chatham-Kent”) recently conducted an Accommodation Needs Assessment (attached) completed by CBRE Limited, Valuation and Advisory Services that confirmed the lack of licensed accommodation in Chatham-Kent. 

The purpose of this Expression of Interest (RFEI) is to gauge market interest from qualified developers, investors, and hospitality operators (each a “Potential Partner”) In participation in the Project, as well as to identify relevant factors Potential Partners may consider when deciding whether to participate in the Project.

Chatham-Kent has developed this RFEI with the intention of soliciting input from a variety of qualified developers, investors and hospitality operators with the capacity of design, finance and construct as well as operate a new midscale to upper midscale branded, limited-service hotel with the appropriate offering of amenities for both business and leisure travelers.

Currently, the Municipality of Chatham-Kent owns a preferred parcel of an appropriately sized property adjacent to the John D. Bradley Convention Centre at 565 Richmond Street, Chatham. This site possesses sufficient parking and existing infrastructure, immediate proximity to the Convention Centre as well as other retail service and entertainment amenities, making it an attractive location for future development. Additional parking is available on adjacent municipally-owned properties. While this site is the preferred option, the Municipality remains open to considering other suitably located properties within Chatham-Kent for potential development opportunities.

Based on the five key selection criteria (access, ingress/egress, visibility, proximity to demand generators and proximity to support amenities) it was validated that the Richmond Street node is the most likely development area in Chatham. Because of Richmond Street being a major thoroughfare and its many support amenities including retail, food service, the Cascades Casino and the John D. Bradley Convention Centre, this area will be most attractive for future hotel development. The area also provides good accessibility off Highway 401 via the current Bloomfield Road exit for ease of business and leisure travelers. 

The hotel is recommended to include a fitness centre, breakfast room and approximately 700 square feet of meeting space. The hotel should likely be three to four stories in size with a total gross square footage of about 35,000 sq. ft. or 440 square feet per room requiring approximately 1.5-1.75 acres of land.

To spur development, the Municipality of Chatham-Kent offers one of the most aggressive Community Improvement Plans (CIP) in Ontario.

Currently, Chatham-Kent is offering a Property Tax Increment Equivalent Program, a program intended to provide economic incentive for the development, redevelopment, adaptive reuse, or rehabilitation of properties in the CIP areas. Specifically, the purpose is to provide an incentive to reduce the tax increase that can result when a property is developed, redeveloped, or rehabilitated. 

For hotel developments, the Municipality is offering an incremental tax rebate of 100% for 1-5 years with a minimum of $1M in investment.

In an effort to attract future accommodation developers, the Municipality is also in the midst of completing a feasibility study analyzing the reasonable probability evaluation of the site.

This evaluation will include:

• Site feasibility study and review of the site survey
• Site analysis and site utilization
• Review of municipal services and adjacencies
• Site context parameters in collaboration with Chatham-Kent Planning Services and zoning direction
• Site planning based on the proposed hotel scale, site ingress, and egress in relationship to the existing corridors
• Site functional design/block planning of proposed infrastructure (hotel) in relationship to the proposed hotel
• Preliminary concept design based on the proposed scale

There will be no evaluation, ranking or selection of the information received from Potential Partners, and this RFEI will not be used to prequalify or screen any Potential Partners for a subsequent competitive procurement process that may be issued by Chatham-Kent, if any.

Please submit your submission no later than 4:00 p.m. on May 1, 2026, via email to CKpurchasing@chatham-kent.ca