SINGAPORE – Satinder Garcha – best known for developing luxury landed homes on Sentosa Cove and Good Class Bungalows – is venturing into the high-end boutique hotels business.
This new enterprise will germinate from four properties he has clinched over the past two and a half years – the old City Hotel in a historic part of Santiago, Chile, and three others in Singapore: Berjaya Hotel in Duxton Road, Murray Terrace, and a row of six shophouses in Syed Alwi Road.
Garcha Hotels is the hotel management company he has minted, which will be separate from ownership of the assets which he controls.
Describing his decision to enter the hotels arena as a natural extension of his property development business, the 41-year-old said: “We’ve built a lot of beautiful buildings. But now we can run them in beautiful ways too. I look forward to creating a brand where we can add our soft skills to obviously the physical buildings.”
He has no specific expansion targets, saying this will be driven by acquisitions. “The common thread running through all Garcha Hotels is passion for genuine old-world hospitality, cultural authenticity, aesthetics and a service-driven experience,” says Mr Garcha when asked about the group’s mission statement.
Like other hotel management companies, Garcha Hotels could in future manage hotels independently for third parties (without owning them). But for now, “we’ve got our hands full” with these four projects in fairly early stages.
In Santiago, he plans to restore the old City Hotel – described as a “grand dame” in its heydays – to its former glory. The property is located in the centre of Santiago in an area steeped in history. Work is scheduled to start later this year and Greystone Park – the proposed new name for the hotel – is slated to open its doors in early 2015. Mr Garcha declines to say how much he paid for the property, which he picked up in late 2010, but reveals that he could pump a further US$40 million into this project.
Rates at the hotel’s 64 suites (ranging from around 40-60 sq m) are expected to be US$500-1,000 per night.
Berjaya Hotel, which Mr Garcha bought recently for $50 million, will be renamed The Duxton on Aug 6 and continue running before it is temporarily shut probably in the second quarter of next year for a revamp. Works are likely to last around three to four months.
“We’re going to change the style, flooring and furniture but the basic structure will be retained,” explains Mr Garcha.
The revamp will see the existing 49 rooms and suites being retained. On completion of works, the hotel will begin trading as Blakes Singapore, styled after the famous Blakes in South Kensington, London. The latter was started in the late 1970s as one of the earliest luxury boutique hotels in the world by Anouska Hempel, a former actress turned hotelier and interior designer.
Offering a combination of luxury and discretion, Blakes Singapore will have the highest price point of the group’s Singapore hotels, with room rates of $500-plus per night, says Mr Garcha.
The group has roped in London-based Anouska Hempel Designs for Blakes Singapore and the Chile hotel.
For the Syed Alwi and Murray Terrace projects (internal architecture, concept and ID), Garcha Hotels has engaged star French architect and decorator Jacques Garcia – who led the restoration efforts for the legendary Mamounia hotel in Marrakech, Morocco. He also designed the NoMad Hotel in New York and Hotels Costes in Paris.
“The commonality with all the hotels we’re doing here in the boutique hotel space is that we’re taking it to a different level in terms of design and getting world-class people like Jacques Garcia and Anouska Hempel,” says Mr Garcha.
The Syed Alwi Road hotel – situated between Little India and Kampong Glam – will be positioned as an art-themed hotel proposed to be named The Vagabond. Works are scheduled to start in August, with the hotel’s opening planned by end-2014.
Having paid $23 million for the six adjoining shophouses last year, Mr Garcha expects to spend a further sum of about $12 million transforming the space into a hotel.
It will have 36 rooms over the second and third levels in addition to four live-in-studios in the attic for artists-in-residence. The ground level space of about 8,000 sq ft will feature a Parisian-themed cafe/bar that will roast its own coffee beans on one end, and a restaurant serving Tapas-format Indian street food on the other. The space in between will be a flexible area that can be configured for various uses including art openings, fashion shows and movie screenings.
“Am I an artist in hiding? No. Actually I got very inspired by the concept of the Swatch Art Peace Hotel in Shanghai, which I visited early last year.”
“It struck me as a great environment to be with artists and I thought something like that could add a lot to the Singapore art scene.”
The Vagabond’s 36 rooms – which will average around 22-24 sq metres – are likely to be priced from $250 to $400 a night. Its four live-in studios will be larger at around 35-40 sq m, free for artists’ stay. “They need not necessarily have to be painters; they could be sculptors, digital artists, etc.”
“We’ll have some sort of director of programming whose job will be to make sure every week, there’ll be something going on like an opening, event or talk by an artist, a demonstration, a screening, etc.”
Mr Garcha is expecting a high proportion of leisure travellers at The Vagabond – “people who want to explore Singapore, what they call “deep-divers”, people who want to stay in more ethnic areas, walk around and check out the original cultural scene”.
Plans for Murray Terrace are furthest away as there are ongoing leases for the office tenants. “No dates have been fixed. We have applied (to Urban Redevelopment Authority) for a change of use to hotel.” Subject to receiving this approval and after existing leases expire in 2015, the group will consider starting works to transform the building into The Murray, a 160-room hotel.
To be positioned as a “party” hotel, the proposed scheme envisages an open-air pool being carved at the rear on ground level; this will be the centre of a live social scene, complementing a high-end lounge, restaurants and bars, says Mr Garcha.
He reckons he may invest around $35 million into this project on top of the $75 million he paid for the property last year. Rooms sizes (including suites) typically will range from 25-40 sq m and he hopes to charge $350 to $600/700 per night for them.
Summing up the themes for his three proposed Singapore hotels, Mr Garcha says: “The differentiation is Syed Alwi will be “arty”, The Murray will be “party” and Blakes is like “snotty”.
Get The Business Times for more stories.
Sentosa Cove developer ventures into hotels
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét