Developer now plans $50m, 202-room hotel

An architect's drawing of the proposed 202-room hotel. Image supplied.
An architect's drawing of the proposed 202-room hotel. Image supplied.
A developer's plans for a downtown Queenstown hotel complex have been upsized.

Long time resident Lew Gdanitz wants to build a hotel on his prime 3000m2 site bordering Shotover St, Stanley St, Gorge Rd and the main council offices.

Late last year, he floated a 110 room hotel plan. But he is now proposing a $50million, 202 room hotel.

Mr Gdanitz, who is seeking a joint venture partner, said: ''The key driver is the major shortage of accommodation in Queenstown.''

The developer said he was planning a four and a half star, family style hotel. He was also planning a series of restaurants on the ground floor, along with a 60 seat cinema and possibly a small pharmacy, laundry and ski rental business.

''As soon as we get a meeting with the design review panel, we will lodge it for resource consent immediately after that.''

The complex is designed by Arrowtown architect John Blair, who said a report by the Queenstown Lakes District Council's urban design panel ''suggested that the site was so special that we could well consider increasing the height of the building''.

He had added two floors by reducing the floor to floor height and adding half a floor on top.

Mr Blair said he had also addressed the panel's other ideas, ''opening the innards of the building out to the street, rather more to show the extent of the interior atriums, and extending them in a suitable landscape manner down towards Horne Creek''.

Part of the site - at present occupied by apartments, car parking and offices - could be required for a traffic bypass linking Melbourne, Henry and Man Sts.

Last week, Colliers International hotels director Dean Humphries told the National Business Review visitors would be turned away from New Zealand's key destinations, Queenstown and Auckland, this summer.

A decade's failure to build new hotels was coming home to roost and the situation would only worsen over the next five years, Mr Humphries said.

 

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