Marriott planning Waterfront hotel

ONE of the world’s leading hotel chains is planning to open a luxury 150-bedroom building on a prime site opposite the V&A in Dundee.

Marriott wants to open the hotel, which will operate under the firm’s AC brand, directly across from the £80.1 million Kengo Kuma-designed museum. It will form part of a development on site six alongside offices and residential accommodation.

A petition was launched last year urging Dundee City Council to abandon proposals to build on the site because the development would block views of the V&A. However, V&A architect Kengo Kuma has given his backing to the plans, saying: “Dundee Waterfront is a stunning location and the planned developments will create a thriving platform for the city’s ambitious regeneration and an appropriate backdrop for the V&A.”

Speaking in the wake of his visit to Dundee earlier this month, the 63-yearold Yokohama-born author and professor at the graduate school of architecture at Tokyo University added: “My building was always designed to complement and harmonise with its surroundings and the adjacent developments.

“It was never designed in isolation and was always meant to be part of a built environment with a flow of people and buildings with other uses in proximity.”

Councillors on the city development committee will be asked to agree a letter of intent with Marriott Hotels International Ltd to operate the hotel on site six under its AC brand, the first of its kind in Scotland, when they meet next week.

Of the three expressions of interest submitted to the council to operate a hotel at the site, Marriott’s was considered the most favourable in financial and quality terms.

Its proposal is for 6,778 square metres of accommodation consisting of a 150-bedroom upscale, full service hotel. Facilities will include a restaurant and bar plus meeting/conference facilities and gym.

Dundee City Council leader John Alexander said: “The hotel at site six is the perfect fit for our vision for the Waterfront.”

The proposed hotel development will employ around 120 full-time equivalent posts plus a further 260 construction jobs during the building works.

Site six is located to the south-west of Slessor Gardens, immediately north of the V&A.

Kengo Kuma