Today’s news in brief – 04/10/23
Dalata Hotel Group has acquired a development site at 28 St. Andrew’s Square, Edinburgh, for £12.5m from Aviva Life and Pensions UK Limited. The site includes a vacant Category A listed building approved for office use, with planning permission for an extension. The group plans to submit a revised planning application in Q1 next year to build a four-star Clayton Hotel with 153 bedrooms, a bar, restaurant, gym, and meeting rooms. The project’s total investment, including site purchase, will be around £48m, creating approximately 60 new jobs. The hotel will prioritise sustainability, designed to operate with zero on-site carbon emissions.
Whitbread, the parent company of Premier Inn, is expanding its presence in Ireland with the acquisition of a development site at Usher’s Quay, Dublin 8, for a 100-bedroom hotel. This acquisition marks Whitbread’s eighth location in Ireland and will bring its total room count in Ireland to over 1,500. The company plans to develop the site itself, subject to planning consent changes. Premier Inn is also opening hotels in other Dublin locations, with plans for a Cork location in 2024.
The Brookfield Hotel, owned for 16 years by the Hughes family, has been sold to Heartwood Collection, a prominent UK hospitality group, backed by Alchemy Partners, for £3.4m. The hotel, located on the outskirts of the South Downs National Park in Hampshire, features 42 bedrooms and a spacious ground floor bar and restaurant. Independent hotel advisors IHCA facilitated the sale, and Heartwood Collection plans a multi-million-pound refurbishment. This sale highlights continued demand for well-located hotel and restaurant opportunities despite current economic challenges and a shortage of such assets in the provincial hotel sector.
Pan Pacific London has appointed John Kelly as its new hotel manager. With over 20 years of experience in the UK and Europe, Kelly joins from Adare Manor in Ireland, where he served as deputy general manager. He has previously held senior roles at hotels such as The Bloomsbury Hotel, The Hoxton Holborn, and W Hotel London Leicester Square. Kelly aims to continue Pan Pacific London’s success, recognised with awards like the ‘Hotel of the Year, Group 2023’ and the ‘AA Hospitality Hotel of the Year 2022/23.’ He will focus on personalised service, staff training, and fostering a positive work culture under the guidance of Anne Golden, the general manager.
