Main Street business owners next to the Gold Rush Inn have been put on notice to close up shop.

Piers McDonald, the president of the Northern Vision Development Corp., said in an interview Wednesday his company has informed businesses occupying the homes lining Main Street next to the Gold Rush Inn all the way to Sixth Avenue to find other arrangements.

'We've started putting people on notice,' McDonald said.

Since buying the hotel and the properties next door last year, his company has been coming up with plans for the area, which could include an express hotel and condominiums.

McDonald said the acquisition is one of a number of buys Northern Vision has made.

Other purchases include the Yukon Centre strip mall which includes the local liquor store and the Subway sandwich shop, the area of properties next to the former Motorways trucking yard, including Domino's Pizza, and an area in Marwell the company is developing into 47 light industrial lots.

The company, he added, also has a sales agreement with High Country Inn owner Barry Bellchambers to purchase that hotel.

If all goes well, he added, Northern Vision could take possession of the High Country Inn this summer.

McDonald also responded to questions about Monday's council meeting on the downtown plan.

He said he's not sure if his company would construct buildings up to eight storeys in the downtown area because building them higher doesn't result in being cost-effective.

'People think that going up means you're getting better economies of scale, and that's not always the case,' he said.

Erecting an eight-storey building, he said, could mean having to change from a stick frame construction to concrete and steel, which could make a project considerably more expensive.

'Stick frames are still good. But when you go concrete, you have to go substantially higher and you have to make sure of your concrete base,' he noted.

McDonald was the Canada Winter Games host society's president.

He was an NDP MLA for Mayo and later a Whitehorse riding between 1982 and 2000, serving as government leader for the last four years of his political career.