Liverpool-based contractor Newry Construction has started building the Times Hotel by Vincent for developer Elliot Group in the Ropewalks district of the city centre. Tony McDonough reports
Work has started on a £20m hotel with a rooftop pool and spa in Liverpool’s Ropewalks district.
Liverpool-based contractor Newry Construction has started building the Times Hotel by Vincent for developer Elliot Group.
The 116-room Seel Street hotel, a later addition to Elliot’s neighbouring £40m Wolstenholme Square project, will be operated by well-known hospitality entrepreneur Paul Adams.
Mr Adams is the creative brainchild behind Southport’s Vincent Hotel and its sister operation, the Vincent Café & Cocktail Bar in Liverpool’s Exchange Flags.
2018 opening
Scheduled to open in late spring 2018, the hotel will include a rooftop pool and spa and makes extensive use of brick to fit in with the neighbouring Georgian and Victorian buildings.
“We’ve just completed block A at Wolstenholme Square so it’s pleasing to see that the rest of the project is pushing on,” said developer Elliot Lawless.
“You can now get a real sense of what we promised at the outset, and how the city-scale of our buildings mirrors what stood here before the Luftwaffe came calling.
“While we can never recreate structures like the wonderful old Valspar factory, we can bring back its scale and massing and animate the ground floors.”
Historic square
Wolstenholme Square was laid out in 1750 as a fine gentleman’s residential square, with most of its Georgian buildings subsequently redeveloped during Liverpool’s headlong rush to maritime pre-eminence in the 19th century.
Several Georgian gems have survived on the square’s west side, but the remainder of the square was heavily bomb-damaged in the Blitz and its buildings replaced with low-density warehousing in the 1950s.
Wolstenholme Square will include 445 studio and one bedroom apartments spread across four blocks.
A further site to the rear of the development has recently been purchased from social care charity PSS and will pave the way for a £36m mixed-use extension to the Falconer Chester Hall-designed development.