No Frills Eco-Chic Hotel Coming to Montreal
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 05. 4.07
The trendiest hoteliers in Canada are the Groupe Germain, but they are high-end boutique and expensive. Now they have launched the cheap-chic Alt brand-“What we’re launching today has been dubbed no-frills-chic, combining design, atmosphere and chic interiors with the best possible price”
Not only is it cheap and chic, but it is green. To keep costs down but maintain quality, the rooms are being prefabricated offsite. The hotel has geothermal heating and cooling, heat recovery from exhaust air, heat recovery from laundry water, energy efficient lighting, geothermally heated tiles on the ground floor and digital controls of ventilation, cooling and heating. Designed by Lemay Michaud Architectures Design, who have done some neat stuff. All for C$ 129 per night which is pretty amazing. ::Althotels
via ::via Springwise
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Finally! A green hotel option! I know where I'll be staying the next time I'm in Montreal. This is "fantastique!"
I looked into staying at the Hotel Germain in Montreal this past week, but when I asked about their environmental policies and lack of any Green Keys in the Hotel Association of Canada's green ranking of hotels, the management at Hotel Germain could only state that their environmental policies were still being developed. I will definitely check out this new option on my next trip to Montreal.
oh god treehugger you do warm my heart
Hi Everyone! I would like to respond to Martha who was in Montreal! I'm the Business Intelligence Director for Groupe Germain and I would like to point out a few environmental changes we've done in the past year at Hôtel Le Germain Montreal. Indeed we do not have the Green Keys yet but we are working on it. Every room in all of Groupe Germain's hotels have a recycle bin, we have stopped using plastic bags for the newspapers, we have switched our styrofoam cups to paper ones (for both clients and employees), we have launched a contest to encourage our employees to bring their own cup, we have an ecological fabric bag to encourage our clients to use it instead of plastic bags, we encourage our clients to reuse their towels in their room to save water (little sign in the bathroom), and since last year, all our laundry products have been changed to environmental friendly products.
We are also proud to add that all future Groupe Germain's contructions exemplify our company¹s growing interest in energy-efficient building technologies. Several state-of-the-art features have been incorporated into the design, which will not only enhance the comfort, but also contribute to the global effort to help preserve our environment for future generations.
I hope this little comment will help you understand how importance the environment is to us!
We stayed at the Alt Hotel late in 2007, as we were excited by the eco hype and wanted to check it out. We were VERY disappointed, and left after 1 night. Why? The main reason was that the rooms had been recently painted (it was brand new) and it was very obvious that oil paint had been used - the fumes were horrific. An "eco" hotel using toxic paint - hmm. I know there were other concerns we had as well, but I can't remember what they all were now. I left a detailed letter for the General Manager explaining my concerns with the hotel, and never had a reply.
I should also mention that the hotel is far from the centre of the city, so is NOT friendly to get to without a car.
The hotel may have improved in the last 18 months, but I would certainly not recommend it.