Hotel for business park

Tourism and conferencing in the North East received a boost recently after plans for a 155-room hotel were unveiled

A new Holiday Inn is planned for the entrance to the Newburn Riverside business park, on the outskirts of Newcastle upon Tyne.

The proposed six-storey full service hotel will boast meeting/conference rooms, a state of the art gymnasium, and extensive landscaping to surrounding land.

The £15m project is expected to take around a year to complete, opening in early 2010, dependent on planning approval from Newcastle City Council.

The site, on Kingfisher Boulevard, is currently owned by regional development agency, One NorthEast.

To ensure the highest standard of design and secure a developer capable of delivery, a two-stage design competition to select a preferred developer was held. Bropar, in conjunction with its equity partner Bridges Ventures, was selected to deliver the project after impressing with their commitment to the highest quality of design for the four-star hotel and contributing £250,000 towards renewable energy and best practice.

One NorthEast Acting Head of Regeneration (North), Neil Graham, said: “Bropar brought forward a high quality scheme that will contribute significantly to the future development of Newburn Riverside.

“The development will aspire to the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) excellent standard – the construction and property sectors’ accepted standard for environmental design and management best practice.”

This covers areas such as energy usage, pollution, transport, land use, building materials and water consumption. Bropar has also committed £80,000 in funding for public art on the site.

Bropar Limited is a UK hotel development and management company with expertise in site acquisition, construction and opening and running hotels.

With an impressive track record of hotel development, Bropar’s management team has been responsible for over £400m of hotel construction all over the world in the last 20 years. The company will shortly be opening a 100-bedroom Holiday Inn Express at Folkstone/Eurotunnel and is in negotiations on a number of other sites.
Andrew Parry, Development Director of Bropar said: “We are excited by the opportunity offered at Newburn on which to develop a new model Holiday Inn, reflecting the very latest design standards of this hotel brand.”

The proposal relates to a site of 3.39 acres gross (1.37ha) on Kingfisher Boulevard. The site is located on the north bank of the River Tyne, 5 miles west of Newcastle upon Tyne city centre, and ¼ mile west of the A1 Western Bypass. The site is to be developed for hotel use in accordance with the Gillespies Masterplan for Newburn Riverside.