March 8, 2016

By Pepper Parr

BURLINGTON, ON

We knew it as the location of the Riviera.

The Riviera Motor Court began operations in 1963. The two level, 32-room motel offered guests a beautiful view of Lake Ontario along the back portion of the motel.

The earliest information for a manager was a Mr. William Dikeman. In 1984 the motel was bought by Mr. John Lee who incorporated it as 558644 Ontario Limited.

The Riviera on the Lake – lots of stories.

The last managers to operate the business were Peter and Yolanda Piekarski. Annual profits were in the area of $242,000.

The balconies at the rear of the motel made the room rate worth every dime.

There was nothing exceptional about the motel – it was the view of the lake from the units at the back of the building.

The 0.7-hectare, block-long property between Elizabeth and Pearl streets just east of Brant was assembled over time. The Lakeshore Road portion was part of a land swap that had the city giving some land in exchange for a shoreline walkway at the edge of the lake which has been in place for a number of years.

When you reach the 70% plus level in sales you don’t need a fancy demonstration site – it had to make room for the construction equipment.

In 2006, Burlington city council approved plans for a new construction project on the property. The project, now known as Bridgewater, has been delayed over the years due to economic factors as well as difficulty in obtaining a developer and hotel partner.

Construction workers stripping away what is left of the sales office for the Btidgewater project on Lakeshore Road.

Bridgewater was to have a 7-storey hotel at street level, that got increased to eight storeys; a 7-storey condo behind the hotel and to the west of both buildings, a 22-storey condo. The condo would obscure the view of Lake Ontario for those living in the condos on the opposite side of Lakeshore. The new buildings would feature a central courtyard open to the public that would lead to the walkway along the water.

The property is owned by Mayrose Tycon who, since 1994, were focused on finding a developer to undertake the construction and to take over the property.
Mady Development Corporation was named but they were taken off the site due to a tricky clause in their agreement with Mayrose Tycon.

The motel is long gone but the walkway that will eventually run from this point all the way to the canal was built a number of years ago as part of a land swap with the city.

The project was “in the works” for the longest time; Conservation Halton had informed Mayrose that if development did not occur on the property by the end of 2012 they would lose between 15 to 20 feet of shoreline property under a new Ontario Regulation.

That got things moving – Mayrose had to get an extension from the Conservation people but that didn’t immediately result in shovels in the ground. It wasn’t until New Horizons was invited to develop the site that one got the sense that this was really going to happen.

Jeff Paikin, known for quality work with a number of solid projects under his belt.

Paikin had bought a unit in the project and was later invited to do the development.

It has been nothing but solid progress since then. Sales of the project are reported to have passed the 70% point. There will a planned 150 units in the two condominium towers.

A collection of 12 pieces of heavy duty construction equipment are on the site – they give a whole new meaning to “shovels in the ground”

Paikin’s partner Joe Giacomodonato handles the actual construction work.

At one point the hotel was going to be open for the Pan Am Games in 2015.

As for the Riviera the writing was on the wall in 2010. They began offering rooms on a monthly basis only. The Region of Burlington paid Riviera to house the city’s homeless people and immigrants.

In April of 2012 the municipal building code department and fire department served a notice on the owners that they needed to bring the building up to code or close it down.

The owners decided to close the building which was boarded up.

On August 18, 2012, the building came one step closer to demolition when a fire broke out in the hotel, caused by arson.

The 2015 Pan Am date came and went; the designated developer of the site changed but the project had just too much value built into it to not go forward.

Three structure project has been the “in the works” since the early 1990’s when developers were given the right to build a 22 storey plus building on the property where the Riviera Waterfront Motel used to exist.

Last week the sleek sales office met its turn with the wrecking ball. The south side of Lakeshore Road lost its parking meters and traffic is being restricted for a couple of weeks while large concrete pipes get buried. What was the Riviera is now the construction site for an upscale condominium that will consist of a seven story and a twenty two story structure attached to each other by a four level underground garage.

The site will include a four star Mariott hotel – the opening date is still pencilled in as 2018 – those things tend to be pretty loose until construction is well under way.

The four floors down garage work will get started soon; the grade of Elizabeth will change and slowly but surely the Bridgewater will rise out of the ground and reach 22 storeys into the sky.

An architectural rendering of an aerial view of the Bridgewater project from the lake side.

The view from the top floor be something to experience.

Paikin, who is a marketer at heart will tell anyone who is within earshot that : “The design is so fantastic and the location is probably the No. 1 location in all of Ontario, if not Canada, as a place to live.”

He might be right.