Whitbread Hotels and Restaurants group have invested over £22 million to develop three Premier Inns based in Yorkshire
, including a hotel that forms an extension of the conference venue; Harrogate International Centre.
The award-winning hotel brand is the largest and fastest growing in the UK, with a portfolio of 600 Premier Inn hotels, totalling up to more than 44,000 rooms.
The investment will add 368 rooms to Premier Inn’s entirety and will form part of the hotel’s big expansion plans to create 22,000 bedrooms in the UK over the next five years, cementing their position as the UK’s biggest hotel chain.
Creation of the new Harrogate-based 107-room Premier Inn will begin in September, and is set to be completed by 2012.
The first of the other two commercial properties based in Leeds, will be a 4180sqm mixed-use hotel and office development with 130 rooms on Whitehall Road, close the City’s main railway station and business centre. The development is due to open in 2014.
The second will be a transformation of the 10 storey Hepworth House office building into a new 131-room 4180sqm ft hotel. The commercial property is at the northern end of the city, an ideal location for a hotel, with great access to the university, hospital and new Leeds Arena. The development forms part of the Leeds Arena master plan and is set to create 50 jobs for the local community.
Craig Burrow, head of Sales at Bruntwood, the privately owned commercial property company which let the 45,000 sq ft Hepworth Point, stated “Hepworth Building was initially designed as a hotel, but never used as one”.
“We have been an active participant in the Leeds Arena master planning and we feel this is a great opportunity to return the building to its originally intended use.” The hotel is scheduled for completion in 2012.
Kevin Murray, Whitbread Hotels and Restaurants’ senior acquisition manager expressed, “In April, Whitbread announced that it was stepping up the rate of growth for Premier Inn.
“We said we wanted to increase our expansion plans by 50 per cent because of our confidence in the product and because of the way our customers continue to demand more locations”.
“These three new hotels in Yorkshire are perfect examples of that strategy in action – and there’s more to come.”
Whitbread was represented in all three deals by WSB Property Consultants.
Separately, Whitbread is in the process of a multi-million pound hotel development in Bradford, which is set to create 70 jobs in the city centre.
The ten-storey commercial property at Broadacre House in Vicar Lane, former home to Yorkshire Water offices will undergo a £5 million refurbishment into a 118-bed hotel.
These new developments show that the UK’s largest hotel and restaurant group with brand leadership are reaching new heights with their mission to bring great quality rooms and great value to even more locations across the country.
Whitbread manage businesses in the budget hotel and restaurant sectors, their portfolio include Premier Inn, Beefeater Grill, Table Table, Taybarns, Brewers Fayre and Costa Coffee.
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