Jennings Real Estate bought the 1.66-acre property just off Riverside Drive near Hunt Club Road from Franco Giammaria and his family, who opened Tudor Hall in the mid-1970s and owned and operated it ever since.
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An Ottawa real estate firm says it’s looking for a new management group to run Tudor Hall after recently acquiring the iconic south-end meeting facility and the adjoining land from their original owners.
Jennings Real Estate bought the 1.66-acre property just off Riverside Drive near Hunt Club Road from Franco Giammaria and his family, who opened Tudor Hall in the mid-1970s and owned and operated it ever since. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Jennings co-owner Ken Jennings said the 20,000-square-foot building tucked beside the Ottawa Hunt and Golf Club on North Bowesville Road will continue to serve as a venue for weddings, banquets, corporate meetings and other gatherings for the foreseeable future.
“It’s an institution,” he added. “It’s somewhere pretty well everyone in Ottawa has been for a wedding or event or other type of celebration.”
Opened in 1975, Tudor Hall has a capacity of up to 1,000 people. The Giammaria family stopped operating the facility at the end of October and it has remained closed since.
Jennings said his firm is currently talking with several hospitality groups that are interested in leasing and operating the facility. He said the site is zoned for a range of uses, calling it “flexible space for a lot of different users and tenants” due to its variety of rooms that include 12,000 square feet of combined ballroom and meeting space that is unobstructed by posts or columns.
Currently zoning rules also permit multi-residential buildings of up to 14 storeys at the site. Jennings said the company’s long-term plan is to redevelop the property with rental apartments or condos.
“That neighbourhood is becoming more and more central to the city as the city grows south,” he said. “That area definitely could use some (residential) density. We’re bullish on the city generally and that area in particular.”
Acquiring Tudor Hall is just the latest high-profile deal for Jennings Real Estate, which was founded in 2018 by Jennings and his brother Christian.
The firm made headlines last year when it bought the 12-storey Gillin Building at 141 Laurier Ave. W. and launched a major renovation of the art-deco-style office tower that was built in 1964 and last underwent a makeover two decades ago.
Earlier this year, Jennings Real Estate made its first acquisition outside the National Capital Region, a 12,000-square-foot industrial complex in the Halifax suburb of Dartmouth.
The company now owns and manages nearly half a million square feet of property. Its portfolio includes several industrial properties in Nepean and Kanata as well as office buildings on Hunt Club and Walkley roads.
