Construction Has Begun on Britomart's New Luxury Hotel and Laneway

After a seven-year run, much-loved garden bar The Britomart Country Club closed its doors for good last month. It has now been revealed that the site of the former pop-up on the corner of Gore and Galway Streets is being transformed into a ten-storey luxury hotel.

Scheduled for completion by 2021, The Hotel Britomart will feature 99 rooms with interiors designed by Cheshire Architects, key players in the transformation of the Britomart precinct. Seattle's Lucas Design Associates have also been enlisted by property owner Cooper and Company to collaborate on five luxury suites — three of which will feature outdoor sky gardens.

The new hotel will include the restoration of two neighbouring heritage buildings and the creation of a pedestrian laneway that will lead from the hotel's main entrance through the Masonic Building to Customs Street. The property's ground floor will be home to new retail outlets and food and beverage offerings.

Construction of The Hotel Britomart is expected to take 20 months, the perfect deadline to host visitors during the America's Cup challenge and APEC conference. Bookings will be open six months prior to opening.

Speaking with Jeremy Hansen for Britomart, architect Nat Cheshire perfectly summed up the end product, "I like to think that staying there will be like drinking Britomart: it enters your body. You should feel as if you have become a resident of the precinct, not just a guest. As if, just for a day, you own the place. The logic has always been that the hotel is Britomart. It's nine city blocks big: you can walk into Karen Walker and choose a dress for the evening, have your hair cut at Ryder, your make-up done at MAC, your dinner at Cafe Hanoi, your dessert at Milse and your last drink at Caretaker. The hotel is where you sleep and where you wake up. It gives you the key to those nine blocks, and all the treasures secreted in them. It tells you that the canele are coming warm out of the Amano ovens in ten minutes, that there is a table just come free at Mexico. So travellers should get this experience of being a resident here – or perhaps the guest in the apartment of a generous friend."

Source: Britomart.

Image: Britomart, Cooper and Company.