Meininger confirms Liverpool hotel deal
The German operator has confirmed it will be opening its first hotel in Liverpool in 2021, a deal first revealed by Place North West this summer.
The three-star, 87-bedroom hotel will be delivered at 1 Union Court on Cook Street in the city centre, where an existing office building will be converted into hotel rooms. There will also be a rooftop extension to accommodate additional rooms with the hotel covering 36,000 sq ft.
In total, the hotel will include 277 beds over six floors, a guest kitchen, breakfast area, lounge, bar, and game zone.
When it opens in 2021, it will be Meininger’s second hotel in the UK following the company’s site in London’s Hyde Park, completed in 2006.
The existing building counts Learn Direct among its current office tenants and has a Slug & Lettuce pub and restaurant on the ground floor. Falconer Chester Hall is the architect.
Hannes Spanring, chief executive of Meininger, said: “There is no doubt that the UK capital is very popular with visitors, and we had a 94% occupancy rate last year at our Hyde Park hotel. But the UK is very rich in attractive destinations with enormous development potential elsewhere too. We are therefore delighted to have signed the contract for a new Meininger Hotel in Liverpool.
“In Liverpool, the figures for overnight stays and hotel offerings have shown a sustained upward trend in recent years, and the forecasts are also very positive.
“The current range of rooms consists mainly of four-star and budget hotels, hostels account for only one percent of all accommodation in Liverpool to date. Our goal is to become the UK market leader in this segment with our unique hybrid hotel concept, which combines the service and comfort of international budget hotels with the exceptional amenities and flexible room structure of hostels.”
German operator Meininger has set out an ambitious growth plan and earlier this summer revealed plans to open its first Northern hotel on Manchester’s Great Ancoats Street.
It is working with Yorkshire-based developer S Harrison to work up the proposals, which feature 212 bedrooms over a 12-storey new-build block, designed by architect 3DReid. Subject to planning consent, this is set to open in January 2022.
Meininger has 26 hotels across Europe; it opened its first hotel in London’s Hyde Park in 2006, and is also planning to expand into the United States with a hotel in Washington DC.
Other UK sites are also identified by the operator including Belfast, Cambridge, Glasgow, and Edinburgh.
They’ve found a good spot facing the Cavern Quarter and Victoria Street. Some 70s brutalist architecture can be depressing but it is part of architectural history and I like this one. Liverpool has some good ones, like this, and some poor ones, like the law courts… in my opinion…
By Liverpolitan
@Liverpolitan is quite right: that’s a surprisingly pleasing building for something from architecture’s dark ages. It’s the fenestration…
And yes: what an absolutely brilliant location. Castle St just up the hill (Liverpool is so flat that a gentle slope constitutes a hill, for outsiders’ benefit) and Beatle-topia over the road. What’s not to like?
By Sceptical
Liverpool is built on seven hills?
By Just saying
The roof extension should be flush like that boss one on the corner of hope street.
By Flush
It’s not built on 7 hills but it was ‘planned’ in 1207 with 7 streets when King John made it his new port for his campaigns in Ireland and in Wales. Before that it would have been a fishing hamlet, probably based around the pool stream near what is now William Brown Street. But there was a Neolithic settlement in South Liverpool and the Calder Stones are now prominently exhibited at the restored Mansion House in Calderstones Park.
By Liverpolitan
Wasn’t this ‘Watson and Prickards” in the 1970’s?
By Sillers
They should defo give FCH Architects more jobs. They are really dead good.
By Lad