Shangri-La seals contract to manage Toronto hotel

Shangri-La Asia, the region's largest luxury hotel and resort operator, has signed a contract to manage a 220-room hotel to be built in Toronto, its second project in Canada.

The Living Shangri-La at University Avenue and Adelaide Street would have a spa and occupy the first 17 floors of a 65-storey residential-cum-hotel tower, the group said yesterday.

The tower, a joint development of Vancouver's upmarket residential developers Westbank and Peterson Group, is expected to cost C$430 million (HK$2.83 billion). Construction will begin next year.

The hotel plans to receive its first guest in 2011, three years after its hotel in Vancouver opens.

Meanwhile, rival Mandarin Oriental International said it would operate three new hotels - in Paris, Taiwan and Guangzhou - by 2010 under separate management contracts.

The Guangzhou project has the most guest rooms at 340 plus 70 serviced flats and is part of Swire Properties' 450,000 square metre retail, commercial and hotel complex development, Tai Koo Hui.