Chapel St to welcome new Aloft Hotel
Starwood Hotels & Resorts has signed a management agreement with the billionaire Fried family’s Spotlight Holdings Group to develop a 176-room Aloft hotel in Melbourne.
The hotel is part of a $120 million mixed-use project, in what is believed to be the Spotlight group’s first development.
The deal has been tied up with Zac Fried, son of the late Ruben Fried, co-founder of The Spotlight Retail Group that operates in Australia, Asia and New Zealand.
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The new-build hotel will form the centrepiece of a mixed-use development in Chapel St, South Yarra to be called ‘402 Chapel’, developed by Spotlight Holdings Group.
Spotlight has a long exposure to property, holding major investments in Australia and Asia.
Spotlight Group Holdings deputy chairman Zac Fried says the company had considered more traditional hotels for the Chapel St site.
This is our fourth signing with the Aloft brand in Australia
“But we were drawn to Aloft’s tech-forward DNA,” Fried says in a statement.
“No other brand caters to the evolving global traveller like Aloft Hotels.”
The 402 Chapel development will include retail shops, first-floor commercial offices, conference facilities and 40 residential apartments, while Aloft Hotel will feature a rooftop pool, bar and restaurant, which will “create a hip, new social hub on South Yarra’s fashionable and buzzing Chapel Street”, Fried says.
Starwood’s director of acquisitions and development, Andrew Taylor, says the entire Chapel St development will be worth as much as $120 million, noting that Starwood has signed several new management agreements in Australia in the past month.
“The growth is very positive for us and this is our fourth signing with the Aloft brand in Australia,” Taylor says.
However, Starwood recently lost its long-held management rights to the Noosa Sheraton in southeast Queensland and the Sheraton Four Points at Sydney’s Darling Harbour to the Hyatt Group.
We were drawn to Aloft’s tech-forward DNA
The Darling Harbour Hotel will be rebranded The Hyatt Regency Sydney on November 30, marking the Hyatt Regency’s return to Sydney.
Marriott is due to buy the Starwood brand in a $19 billon deal next month, creating the world’s largest hotel company.
The 402 Chapel Aloft is expected to open in 2019.
Starwood Hotels vice-president Sean Hunt says the mid-market Aloft Brand has experienced rapid growth around the world since its inception in 2008.
Starwood has 17 operating hotels in the Pacific and a further 12 in the pipeline.
This article originally appeared on www.theaustralian.com.au/property.
