GMI starts on Piccadilly Basin hotel

Construction work has begun on a nine-floor luxury hotel on Ducie Street in Manchester for Dakota Hotels, with Leeds-based contractor GMI Construction aiming to complete the project in 2019.

Designed by KPP Architects, the hotel will include 138 bedrooms, a 130-cover restaurant, a lounge, bar, and champagne bar.

Plans were lodged for the project in November 2016 and approved in April this year. The hotel is due to open in 2019.

The site, which is currently a surface car park, was purchased by developer Evans Property Group from Town Centre Securities in 2016, and is the developer’s first hotel project in Manchester.

The hotel group already operates three site in Glasgow, and opened its first hotel in Leeds earlier this year.

The new hotel will sit near a wider development in the Piccadilly Basin being brought forward by Belgravia Living Group, a joint venture between Leeds-based developer Town Centre Securities and GMI.

Plans for the area include around 900 homes, with projects including the 10-storey Eider House apartment block, designed by Cartwright Pickard.