Sydney’s Tricon Property Group and urban planning firm Mecone have outlined plans for a new ‘pencil tower’ hotel to be constructed in the Sydney CBD which will eventually be operated by a major lifestyle brand.
The site at 410 Pitt Street, between Goulburn and Campbell Street, will see the demolition of the existing structures and a new 33-storey building sandwiched in a gap described as being no wider than a terrace house. Early plans call for external construction to be completed by late 2022. Architecture drawings of the hotel recently won a City of Sydney design competition, with the design inspired by similarly thin towers in Hong Kong and other parts of Asia.
Mecone says a search is now on to identify and select a lifestyle hotel brand to manage the operation, which will feature 178 rooms sitting atop a three-level podium. Other guest and public facilities will include meeting facilities, a bar, retail areas, a walled garden and a rooftop ‘hamman’ plunge pool. The development will be a short-stay hotel in its entirety, with the selected operator having full use and control over the building. Guests will be permitted to stay up to a maximum of three months in any one stretch.
Technology will play a key role in the hotel’s operations, with early plans outlining mobile key access as being core to the wiring which will be installed within the hotel.
“Personal mobile devices are now active in guest processes. Some operators have introduced what will most likely be a standard process in the future whereby a secure key is loaded into the guest’s mobile phone on arrival that acts as a room key, a key to any locked guest facilities such as a gym and is used to check in and check out without having to go to a central desk,” plans submitted to the City of Sydney Council detail.
The development has been valued at AUD$35.6 million and is expected to become the thinnest building in Australia, surpassing Melbourne’s Phoenix Apartments in Flinders Street.