Premier Inn Banks St Mary At Hill Site As City Expansion Success Continues
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Whitbread signs with Beltane Asset Management for 184-bedroom hotel in EC3
Premier Inn, the UK’s largest hotel chain, has completed a deal with Beltane Asset Management to develop a 184-bedroom hotel in the heart of the City. The scheme – to be developed by Beltane Asset Management as a developer turnkey deal – is an office to hotel conversion and was approved by the City of London’s Planning Committee on Tuesday (20 March).
The deal is part of a series of recent successes for Premier Inn in London and within the M25 as it continues to drive forward its national expansion programme. London is identified as a key growth market and Premier Inn is aggressively targeting sites across the capital.
The deal for St Mary’s at Hill sees Premier Inn taking a 35 year lease and investing more than £25 million into the scheme (on a capitalised lease basis). The new hotel – which will include a Thyme restaurant – will create approximately 55 jobs.
Derek Griffin, Head of Acquisitions for Premier Inn in Greater London, said: “Premier Inn is expanding rapidly across the country and we are enjoying strong success in London, one of our core growth markets. This deal with Beltane Asset Management is another example of where the strength of the Premier Inn proposition – and the Whitbread financial covenant – can deliver a hugely attractive investment proposition, unlike some of our budget hotel rivals.
“In addition to securing such a prime site as St Mary at Hill for our portfolio, we’ve recently had notable successes at Goodman’s Fields, E1 (a 250-bedroom hotel scheme with Berkeley Homes) and at Euston Road, NW1 (a 266-bedroom hotel). The results show how flexible we can be and what we have to offer development and investment partners like Beltane. We’re literally having a purple patch on delivering growth in London and are eager for more.”
Beltane Asset Management purchased the building unconditionally in May 2011 with no external debt funding, together with another property in Mason’s Avenue. Beltane currently has 6 properties in Central London with a principal focus on the core City and West End markets.
Jonathan Chenery, Partner at Beltane Asset Management, said: “Having selected Whitbread as our preferred partner for the scheme, we are delighted to have now successfully secured planning. We have developed a strong relationship with Whitbread and are confident that this will be the first of many transactions we will be able to do together. With six assets in London, we remain highly acquisitive and have significant investor support for further purchases this year.”
Premier Inn currently has more than 47,000 bedrooms across the UK and over 10,000 bedrooms in its secured development pipeline. Whitbread, Premier Inn’s parent company, announced in its latest Trading Update to the City (28 February 2012) that it is creating 10,000 new jobs in the UK over the next three years as a result of the expansion of the Costa and Premier Inn brands.
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