Hotel Grand Chancellor is bringing a new 12-storey hotel to Auckland Central, offering 191 guestrooms and suites for business and leisure travellers.
The new hotel will be located on Wellesley Street West, directly across from the New Zealand International Convention Centre (NZICC). Resource Consent has been granted for the development, at a time when the tourism industry has been heavily impacted by the effect of the global pandemic and current border restrictions.
"We are not deterred, and we continue to invest in this beautiful country. Our focus is for the construction of the hotel to be completed prior to the opening of the convention centre and ideally the reopening of our border to international travellers," explained Frank Delli Cicchi, Hotel Grand Chancellor’s Group General Manager Australia and New Zealand.
This is Hotel Grand Chancellor’s first new-build hotel in New Zealand. Through its parent company, Hotel Grand Central Ltd (a publicly listed Singapore entity), they currently own and operate two hotels in New Zealand: a smaller apartment hotel in Auckland and the Hotel Grand Chancellor James Cook Hotel in Wellington. The brand also owns and operates eight other hotel properties in Australia.
New Zealand based Beca and Ignite Architects are partnering with Singapore based interior design DPDI Pte Ltd to deliver this exciting project.
The hotel will provide 10 levels of guestrooms over a two-level podium with public amenities, a laneway, and a central courtyard. The courtyard, which will feature vegetated trellises and native flora, will provide natural light throughout the building, and create the opportunity for both harbour and courtyard-facing rooms.
A café will be adjacent to the lobby at the ground floor. Complete with a walk-up café window, it is conveniently located near busy bus stops and will offer barista coffee for pedestrians during the day.
In the evening, the small café will convert into a bar, offering a selection of beverages and light snacks. At level one, meeting facilities and a restaurant will provide views across bustling Wellesley Street.
The building design is local in its approach, celebrating Auckland’s heritage through both cultural and geographic narratives. Ignite Associate Director Audrey de Filippis says the history of the site was monumental in its influence on the building design.
Originally, the building’s location would have been within a forest, and the link between the coastline and forest was the catalyst for the design narrative. This was juxtaposed with elements that celebrate the more recent history of the site and its place in an industrial neighbourhood.
The hotel will begin construction early 2021, with completion due mid-2023. The project is currently under tender and will be financed partly by internal funds and bank borrowings.
