T&G site reopens as a Hilton franchise
The Wellington location has been a long time coming for the international hotel chain.
The Hilton chain has opened its first Wellington hotel in the old T&G building on Lambton Quay, and has also announced a deal to construct another hotel at the thoroughbred auction venue at Karaka.
The Wellington property is owned by developer and philanthropist Mark Dunajtschik, and the 4.5-star hotel will operate under Hilton’s DoubleTree brand.
The 106-room hotel will be managed by Hilton, under a franchise agreement with Sarin Investments.
Hilton announced on Friday it had signed a management agreement with a division of New Zealand Bloodstock to manage the Karaka Millions complex’s new 120-room hotel south of Auckland.
Construction on the Karaka hotel will begin in the third quarter of 2018 and is due to be finished by early 2020.
The vice-president of Hilton’s operations in Australasia, Heidi Kunkel, said opening a DoubleTree in Wellington was ‘‘a huge milestone and really represents the brand’s confidence in the continued growth of the Wellington market’’.
It also reinforced Hilton’s commitment to double its footprint in New Zealand within the next five years, she said.
There are two other DoubleTree-branded hotels in New Zealand (one in Queenstown and one in Christchurch), and more than 500 worldwide.
The Wellington location has been a long time coming. Hilton has been eyeing Wellington since 2008 when a $45 million hotel on the waterfront was proposed. But an Environment Court decision stopped the construction of the hotel on the outer-T of Queens Wharf.
Then in 2014, Dunajtschik proposed a five-star Hilton hotel and convention centre be built opposite Te Papa for $100m.
However, the site became unavailable after the Wellington City Council approved Sir Peter Jackson’s movie museum and convention centre proposal for Cable St instead of Dunajtschik’s proposal.
The historic T&G building, also known as the old Harcourts building, was built in 1928 as one of Wellington’s first office towers.
Dunajtschik bought the building in 2002. ‘‘It’s been a financial disaster so I can’t be very excited about it,’’ he said.
Dunajtschik is estimated to have spent millions restoring the building after the Environment Court rejected his bid to demolish the building due to its strengthening costs, but he would not comment on the cost of the renovations.
In July last year, Dunajtschik, a German-born philanthropist in his 80s, announced he would pay for, build and gift a $50m children’s hospital to the Capital & Coast District Health Board.
The hotel’s design has taken a page from designs of the late 1920s, with Chicago-style architectural elements and art-deco interiors with copper accents.
There are 106 rooms, 14 of which are suites, a restaurant, a bar, a gymnasium, parking and a boardroom.
General manager Mads Nielsen said the hotel would create 65 new jobs. The seven-storey hotel was initially slated for an opening in late 2017, but construction delays pushed the opening back six months, a Hilton spokeswoman said in August last year.
Sarin is also behind the new Sebel hotel in Lower Hutt and has the contract to manage the Hutt City Council’s new $23m events centre.
‘‘It’s been a financial disaster so I can’t be very excited about it.’’ Building owner Mark Dunajtschik, left