The Delta Bessborough’s general manager, Renjith Vengalil, said “when you walk into the building, once the renovation is done, it will look like new.” (Delta Bessborough/Submitted)

Saskatoon’s iconic Bessborough hotel to undergo major renovation starting in January

By CKOM News Dec 16, 2025 | 2:06 PM

Saskatoon’s iconic Bessborough Hotel is going to look a lot different by this time next year – on the inside.

The hotel is undergoing significant interior renovations, starting on the building’s north wing, beginning in mid-January. It’ll close between mid-May to September before the slated grand reopening in the last quarter of 2026.

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Delta Bessborough’s general manager, Renjith Vengalil, said the renovations will include upgrades to the 225 guest rooms as well as public spaces, like the lobby, meeting rooms, and a new restaurant called the Grand Junction, which will be a three-meal establishment.

“We are relocating our restaurant … (to) where the pool is located now on the ground floor,” he said, which will require demolishing the lobby.

Hundreds of people gathered at the Bessborough Gardens at Rock the River music festival in Saskatoon on Aug. 15, 2025. (Mia Holowaychuk/650 CKOM)

Work will also be done on the building’s mechanics, like its heating and cooling systems. In combination, these major changes are the reason why the hotel needs to close for the entirety of summer.

“The best time period to actually make that happen is during the seasonal change, which includes when the temperature warms up,” Vengalil noted about the mechanical renovations.

He didn’t share how much this would all cost, but said it’s a “significant investment.”

Despite all the upgrades, the goal is to “preserve the history of this hotel,” according to Vengalil, by blending the new with the old.

The ceilings that are authentic to the hotel will stay, while walls and lighting fixtures, like the chandeliers, will look new, he said.

The renovation will also see the introduction of a “Cabinet of Curiosities,” which, according to a release from the hotel, will display curated and changing objects, artifacts and stories reflecting the Bessborough’s history.

Vengalil said that’ll include a fire extinguisher located in the hotel back in 1935 – the year it opened –and an old menu that advertised chicken pot pie selling for $2.

Renovations a long-time coming

The hotel was originally scheduled to undergo renovations back in 2020, Vengalil said, but that was put on hold because of the pandemic.

It took another five years before these current plans were announced because of the project’s scope, he said.

The hotel manager wouldn’t confirm whether the price of rooms will go up for hotel guests wanting to stay after the renovations are finished.

Instead, Vengalil said, “from an investment perspective, [we] always need to see a return of investment, but our pricing is always depending on the supply and demand.”

With this renovation, the Bessborough will transition to a different Marriott brand – moving from a Delta-branded hotel and instead joining the “Autograph Collection.”

“The Autograph Collection brand was curated to actually tell the history of the building and so hence the reason why we are actually doing a brand change. So, then we can preserve a history of this building,” Vengalil said.

— with files from 650 CKOM’s Marija Robinson