W Hotel Is Opening in Melbourne as Part of a Dramatic New CBD Precinct

After throwing open the doors to its new development in Brisbane earlier this month and announcing they'll be laying foundations in Sydney as well, the next destination on the horizon for luxe hotel chain W Hotel will be Melbourne.

W Melbourne is slated to open in 2020 on Collins Street in the middle of Melbourne's shopping heartland. Following Brisbane's ten-gallon baths and Sydney's flashy pool deck overlooking the harbour, the Melbourne digs look to be no less indulgent. W Melbourne will encompass 294 rooms and suites, including an "Extreme Wow Suite", which we're guessing will be high on the list for very important wedding anniversary occasions or maybe a Tinder date you really want to impress.

To be designed by New York-based SHoP Architects, global design firm Woods Bagot and interior designers Hachem, W Melbourne will house a bar, restaurant, spa, gym and a heated indoor pool. And, for those needing function space, W will have more of it than you can physically fill — a 13,000-square metre space for conferences, meetings, or holding lush balls.

While there's no word yet on who will be running the restaurant, if Brisbane's W is anything to go by — it's headed up by Sydney's Three Blue Ducks — it'll be someone pretty good. Ben Shewry? Aaron Turner? David Moyle? We can only dream.

Functioning, too, as the bottom 20-storeys of a towering new precinct called Collins Arch, W Melbourne will sit on Collins Street, with the hotel lobby located on Flinders Lane. The $1.3 billion new precinct will be comprised of two towers of commercial, residential and retail spaces, joined at the top by a dramatic sky bridge.

W Melbourne and W Sydney will make three Australian branches for the W Hotel chain, adding to its existing 50 in the world, and helping reach its goal of 75 across the globe in the next two years.