North East & Yorkshire

Leeds welcomes new Premier Inn

Premier Inn Hepworth

The transformation of a former office building in Leeds into a ten-storey Premier Inn hotel is almost complete.

The new Hepworth Point Premier Inn is located on the outskirts of the city, adjacent to the new Leeds Arena. Due to be completed by the end of February 2012, the hotel will house 131 bedrooms, a bar and restaurant, along with a reception area and additional ancillary rooms.

Property specialists Bruntwood Estates owns the building and has agreed to lease it to Whitbread for the purpose of running it as a Premier Inn hotel. The development will comprise a mixture of double, triple and quad bedrooms, with several rooms specifically designed to accommodate disabled guests.

Before work to transform the former office space could begin, all of the existing office elements including partitions and suspended ceilings had to be removed in order to leave just a concrete shell. Bedroom and corridor wall partitions were then installed and a new drain system was core drilled through the existing concrete floor slabs in order to meet drainage requirements.

Following this, new ceilings were installed and the number of window openings was increased. All of the existing windows in the hotel have also been upgraded by the installation of secondary glazing. With the addition of insulation to the wall linings, the secondary glazing will allow the development to meet the thermal and acoustic requirements of the site.

Internal work has included the fit out of carpets and fixtures in bedrooms, whilst new glazed curtain walling has been introduced to the ground floor bar and restaurant areas.

External work has included the painting of the corrugated metal clad building and the installation of signage featuring the Premier Inn logo.

An existing shared car park is located underneath the hotel and will provide parking spaces for disabled drivers. In addition, a small section of pavement outside of the hotel has been modified to create a taxi drop-off point for the site.

The architect for the conversion scheme is Allison Pike Partnership. Having already completed a number of Premier Inn conversions and new build projects for Whitbread, the company has worked closely with Bruntwood Estates in order to deliver this project.

Sanderson is the main contractor and Peter Hucks of Summit is the structural consultant. The project manager for Bruntwood Estates is James O’Keeffe, whilst the project manager for Whitbread is Aiden Lewis of Fletcher McNeil. Bruntwood Estates’ mechanical and electrical consultant is Andy Archer of Compas Energy, whilst Aaron Sutcliffe of Thornley & Lumb is the mechanical and electrical consultant for Whitbread.

Subcontractor mechanical works are being undertaken by Abbey Plumbing Limited and electrical subcontractor works are being undertaken by John Dawson Electrical.

Allison Pike Partnership Director, Chris Gill, said:

“Having previously been a ten-storey office building on the outskirts of Leeds City centre, it’s great to see a building like this transformed into a new Premier Inn. This is made even more exciting by the fact that it is opposite such an exciting and high profile development as the new Leeds Arena.

“We’re putting in many of the standard elements that you’d find in the current generation of Premier Inns and this includes the new automatic check-in machines, which will enable guests to check in for themselves.”

He added: “All of the subcontractors and professional consultants involved on this project have previous experience working on Premier Inn sites and the whole team has worked very well together to produce this latest development.”

 

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