The AC Hotel by Marriott Ottawa Downtown has opened in the heart of the nation's capital, the first of three Marriott-branded hotels being developed in the city by Montreal-based RIMAP Hospitality Services Inc.

“We were already developing multires apartments in Ottawa and we decided to try doing a hotel development as well,” RIMAP Hospitality president and RIMAP Construction vice-president Marc Varadi told RENX in an interview that also included RIMAP's Ottawa regional general manager Stéphane Pelletier.

The other two hotels, also in the downtown area, are to open over the next two years and represent a wave of new hospitality product for the National Capital Region. The AC Hotel downtown opened April 24.

“Ottawa hasn't seen this type of hotel development in decades,” Varadi said.
 
The centrally located 159-room AC Hotel at 201 Rideau St., on the site of a former The Beer Store in the heart of Ottawa's ByWard Market district, is joined by MRKT Lofts in the 25-storey building. The ratio is approximately 60 per cent guest rooms and 40 per cent rental apartment units, with tenants starting to move in on May 1.

“It was a 14,000-square-foot floor plate, which was logistically pretty tight for our typical hotel and apartment design,” Varadi explained. “We normally like a little bit of a larger floor plate because it allows us more room to breathe and put all the services that we need into a hotel and apartment building, but we made it work and we're excited to share it with Ottawa.” 

AC Hotel by Marriott Ottawa Downtown offers a range of amenities, including: electric vehicle charging stations; a swimming pool; a sauna; a gym; five meeting rooms; the AC Kitchen and AC Lounge.

The AC Hotels by Marriott brand features more than 225 hotels in over 30 countries and territories.

RIMAP Hospitality’s mixed-use history

While this is RIMAP Hospitality’s first hotel in Ottawa, it’s certainly not its first property to combine a hotel with rental apartments.

RIMAP Development was building a 37-storey apartment tower on Sherbrooke Street West in Montreal, its biggest project to that point, and wasn’t sure it could fill all the units since it was going above its 200- to 250-unit comfort level. 

It considered including office space but instead introduced a hotel through the 2007 creation of RIMAP Hospitality, so the twinned property became Hilton Garden Inn Montreal Downtown and Le 400 Apartments.

“It turned out to be a great success and from there we said, ‘This is working for us. Let's do it again,’” Varadi said, “and we inadvertently became the mixed-use development specialist for hotel and apartments in our province.”

RIMAP Hospitality currently manages six brands under the Marriott, Hilton and IHG Hotels & Resorts banners, while RIMAP-affiliated Summit Property Management manages the company's apartment properties.

Moxy Ottawa Downtown and Major Apartments

RIMAP plans to open two additional Ottawa hotels over the next two years.

Moxy Ottawa Downtown and Major Apartments will open in early 2026 at 126 York St., also in ByWard Market. It will have 221 guest rooms and more than 300 apartment units and incorporate a heritage building. 

“It was a grocery wholesale building from the time we were building the Rideau Canal (in the early 1800s),” Pelletier said. “ByWard Market was developed and put in play to house all of the workers and their families. Mr. Major, which the building is named after, purchased it and made it a wholesale distribution centre for his grocery stores in the city of Ottawa.”

ByWard Market, by some accounts, has lost some of its vibrancy in recent years. But Varadi said new mixed-use developments around the area from other companies are joining with RIMAP’s projects and should help bring the neighbourhood back as a popular dining and entertainment hub.

Renaissance Hotel and OROS Apartments

Renaissance Hotel and OROS Apartments is to open at 400 Albert St., near Bay Street in Ottawa’s financial district, in the spring of 2027. It will have 221 guest rooms and approximately 250 apartments.

“I think it's going to be Ottawa's premier hotel,” Varadi said. “Renaissance is a more upscale, refined brand for more of a business crowd.” 

There will be more than $500 million in investments in the three Ottawa hotel/apartment buildings, and they’ll create 600 jobs, according to Varadi. He noted that a number of hotels have been removed from the system in recent years and some existing hotels are “tired product,” so these new additions should give the market a boost. 

Moxy Montreal Downtown opening this month

RIMAP is also busy in other markets, as the nation's hotel sector undergoes a major spate of hospitality building.

Moxy Montreal Downtown, the province’s first Moxy hotel, is also opening this month in the same building as Skyla Apartments. The Moxy Hotels brand launched in Italy in 2014 with Moxy Milan and the first Moxy hotel in Canada opened in downtown Halifax in January 2024. 

Moxy Montreal Downtown is at 910 Saint-Jacques Street — close to Old Montreal, Griffintown, the Bell Centre and more — and features 216 guest rooms, co-working spaces, a fitness centre, an indoor pool, and a restaurant-bar and lounge area.

The bottom 20 floors of the 65-storey building are dedicated to the hotel, with 662 apartment units above. It’s the tallest building RIMAP has built and the tallest residential building in Montreal. Apartment leases begin in June.

RIMAP Hospitality also manages Hilton Garden Inn Montreal Downtown, AC Marriott Montreal Downtown, Courtyard Montreal Downtown, Holiday Inn & Suites Montreal Downtown West and Honeyrose Hotel Montreal in the city. All are mixed-use buildings that also provide purpose-built rental apartments.

Non-hotel developments

RIMAP Development has three more multires developments planned for Ottawa once the current hotel/apartment projects are completed. 

RIMAP Development and Toronto-based developer main + main are also planning a 41-storey, 497-unit apartment tower at 5238 Dundas St. W., on the site of the former Dundas Street Grille, in the Toronto suburb of Etobicoke.

“Now that we're established in Ottawa, we'd like to continue moving west on the hotel side and keep doing mixed-use developments in Toronto,” Varadi observed. “We're looking at deals all the time.”