Care home plan for former hotel
PERMISSION GRANTED TO TRANSFORM SEAFRONT LANDMARK
PLANS to transform the former Rex Hotel in Whitley Bay into a care home have been given the go-ahead.
The £10m scheme, which has now been approved by a North Tyneside Council planning committee, is expected to create 30 jobs, as well as around 75 more during construction.
Under the programme, the Victorian-style hotel – which closed last year – and the attached Deep nightclub will be turned into an 83-bedroom home with dining, leisure, treatment, administration and support facilities.
The building, which has been a seafront landmark for years, will accommodate young people with disabilities as well as elderly residents, including those with dementia.
The Malhotra Group, which is behind the scheme, says work will start on the site this year and is due to finish in 2019.
Bunty Malhotra, CEO of the firm, added: “We are absolutely delighted that the local planning committee has voted positively to approve our application, and that we can now start to bring rejuvenated life back into a building that’s been long associated with Whitley Bay’s seafront history.
“The development scheme will restore, remodel, refurbish and extend the existing building to provide state-of-the-art care facilities to younger persons with a physical disability, in addition to specialist dementia nursing care.
“The new facility when open will also bring with it new jobs for the area. We propose to start work on the building before the end of this year, with completion scheduled for the autumn of 2019.”
The Rex, formerly called the Waverley Hotel, is in a prominent location at the junction of South Parade and the Promenade.
The four-storey structure, built in 1907, is on the council’s register of buildings of special local architectural and historic interest. At first, it was one of a chain of temperance hotels. Gradually, over 10 years, the Waverley swallowed up neighbouring houses on the promenade and vacant land up South Parade.
A pamphlet issued by its management in the early 1920s described the Waverley as one of the largest and most up-to-date private residential hotels on the North East coast.
At the time, it had about 150 bedrooms, its own heated garage and a private tennis court.
In 1937, the hotel obtained a license to sell alcohol for the first time and, about the same time, changed its name to the Rex.