Apartments offer a luxury visit
A look back at the growth of aparthotels in the North East
May 2006: Aparthotels enter the market for city centre customers
A SCOTTISH hotel company is set to take on Newcastle’s up-market hotels with a near £10m investment in two city centre properties. Glasgow-based McKever Group has paid £3m for the completed development of Jackson House on Northumberland Street. A Gateshead developer paid £750,000 for the upper three levels of the 1920s building on Newcastle’s premier shopping parade last October. It planned to gut the upper floors of the building, which houses a Greggs and Burger King as ground and first floor tenants, and replace them with 20 one and two-bedroom apartments, which it intended to sell-off for up to £210,000 each. The development, which is expected to be completed by the Gateshead company later this year, will now be offered for letting by McKever as an alternative to traditional up-market city centre hotel accommodation. McKever, which claims to be Scotland’s fastest growing hotel company with a £75m portfolio, successfully launched the up-market City Aparthotel brand, which will operate the Northumberland Street property, in Glasgow city centre last year. It expects to acquire its third building under the brand when it buys another property less than half a mile from the four-star Malmaison on Newcastle Quayside in the next few weeks, and eventually roll the brand out across the rest of the UK. Sean Craig, sales and operations director at McKever Group, said: “The concept is to offer short-term accommodation at rates less than traditional hotel rooms. We will offer one and two-bedroom apartments with full concierge and security from £99 to £150 a night.” The apartments will be fitted with modern kitchens, separate lounges with plasma screen televisions, DVD players and Play Stations, plush double rooms with plasma screens, en suite facilities and power showers. Mr Craig said the rate compared favourably with city centre hotel rates, starting from £120 for a mid-sized room, although the Northumberland Street complex would not offer guests a bar or restaurant. January 2008: Homing instinct to bring enterprise
A YOUNG entrepreneur who studied at Newcastle University is planning to expand his latest enterprise to the city this year.
Adam Thorpe, 27, launched SuperiorStay in Harrogate last year to provide luxury, serviced apartments for people visiting the town for business or pleasure.
He said: “We want people to see SuperiorStay as an alternative to say, staying at the Hilton, certainly locally. It’s like having an amalgamation of an apartment and a hotel suite in one.”
Harrogate was chosen as the launchpad because it attracts so many business visitors due to its popularity as a conference venue. Mr Thorpe believes Newcastle is the logical place to develop the idea because the city also pulls in a high number of business travellers.
SuperiorStay guests are treated to fully serviced apartments, including maid service, laundry and a chauffeur service which collects customers from the airport or railway station.
