A $75 million hotel in the heart of Wellington is set to open this summer.
The Holiday Inn on the corner of Featherston and Whitmore streets will be the capital’s largest, offering 280 rooms on 17 levels.
The project is being developed by Auckland-based Melview Properties. Managing director Nigel McKenna says the development was a vote of confidence in Wellington as a tourist destination.
“Wellington has one of the highest hotel occupancy rates in New Zealand with 65 percent occupancy compared to the national average of 55 percent.
“The Wellington hotel sector also provides higher returns than other sectors.”
Mr McKenna says the hotel would also offer more than 600 square metres of conference facilities. It had been planned that levels 13, 14 and 15 would be dedicated to owner-occupied penthouse suites.
“However, with the buoyant hotel market in Wellington it now makes better sense to dedicate the entire building to the hotel operation.”
He says the new hotel would be well located for visitors to the capital, being only a short distance from Parliament, Wellington Railway Station, the Westpac Stadium and Cook Strait ferries.
The hotel will be managed by the world’s largest hotel company, InterContinental Hotels, under the Holiday Inns brand.
It will be the first Holiday Inn in the North Island, only the third in New Zealand and the 21st in Australia and New Zealand combined.
By Colin Patterson, The Dominion Post
