Blackpool to take control of Winter Gardens hotel site
The council’s executive will meet next week to sign off a deal to acquire Alfred Street Car Park next to the iconic venue to deliver a 160-bedroom hotel.
Developer Kewdeal won consent for a four-storey hotel on the site last year but Blackpool Council will now bring the project forward, subject to the sale being approved.
The council has agreed terms with the landowner, a London-based private investor, to buy the site.
The site has long been earmarked for a hotel, and is located next to the 66,000 sq ft Winter Gardens Conference and Exhibition Centre. Construction of the conference centre is nearing completion.
Bisset Adams is the architect behind both the hotel and the conference centre, which could eventually be linked via a bridge.
Blackpool Council is currently developing another hotel project. The construction of a 144-bedroom Holiday Inn Express as part of the Talbot Gateway masterplan is underway.
The Holiday Inn is being built on the site of the former Wilkos store. Wilkos is due to relocate to a 22,000 sq ft store within an extension of Houndshill shopping centre.
Work on the extension, which also features a nine-screen, 40,500 sq ft multimedia cinema complex, has started.