History meets future in hotel development
Construction has begun on Wyndham Hotel Group’s $70 million Ramada Suites hotel, which will open in Auckland in late 2018.
It’s the hotel group’s 12th property, and the third Auckland hotel operating under the Ramada brand.
The 147 Victoria St property along with five other Ramadas in the pipeline nationwide have an estimated value of nearly half a billion dollars.
The hotel, in the Auckland central business district, will feature 47 studios, executive suites and one-bedroom apartments, all with kitchen facilities.
The entire Victoria St property will be a mix of residential and hotel accommodation. The serviced apartments within the development have already sold out, but 12 of the 66 residential apartments remain unsold.
The remaining apartments range from $470,000 to $970,000 including GST.
The property had a rateable value of $4.3m in July 2014.
Wyndham Hotel Group’s two other Ramada Suites in Auckland are the 66-room Ramada Suites Albany on the North Shore, which opened in March of this year, and the 42-room Ramada Suites on Federal St, which opened in 2015.
Construction on the Victoria Street Ramada Suites is being undertaken by local developer Safari Group.
This is one of many franchise agreements between Wyndham and Safari Group.
Safari Group director Robert Neil said Safari Group has become the largest hotel developer in New Zealand, thanks largely to its close partnership with the Wyndham Hotel Group and the Ramada Suites developments.
He has overseen the development of a Ramada in Christchurch 18 months ago as well as one in the Remarkables, which opened in the middle of last year, and the Ramada Suites Albany.
In the pipeline, Neil said, were the Victoria Street Ramada Suites, Wyndham Gardens Queenstown, which will open early next year, a Ramada in Manukau expected to begin construction in October, and a Ramada Queenstown that will begin construction in April of next year, among others.
‘‘We’ve purchased a site in Newmarket Auckland, so Ramada Newmarket and that will start construction in June next year,’’ Neil said.
He hinted another Ramada was planned for East Auckland to start early next year, but said he could not disclose more than that.
‘‘So we’ve got six on the go at the present time and three or four that we’ve opened over the last short period.’’
Neil said the company has been working with a conservation architect and Heritage New Zealand to ‘‘appropriately retain the important historic appeal of the site’’.
The site is a former Cambridge factory that was built in 1901. Its development will maintain the old clothing factory’s heritage-listed facade and will deconstruct and reconstruct its historical roofing.
‘‘Gaining the necessary approvals for our vision required hard work and thorough planning and we believe the end result will be something that guests will value and the public will see as a respectful and attractive merging of historic and modern Auckland,’’ Neil said.
Wyndham Hotel Group managing director Barry Robinson said developers were paying attention to rising visitor numbers and strong growth in Auckland.
‘‘This is driving increased interest from developers for globally known brands like Ramada and others offered by Wyndham Hotel Group, which are well positioned to meet the emerging needs of travellers in the region.’’