18-storey tower to be built over Hotel Wright St in Adelaide CBD

THIS historic city pub is in for a drastic makeover. See what the finished building will look like here.

Hotel Wright Street as it currently stands. Picture: Eugene Boisvert

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• Highway Hotel’s $40m project now with supermarket
• Port’s Commercial Hotel reveals facelift
• Paradise Hotel re-opens after renovation

A NEW 18-storey building towering over the Hotel Wright St will complement the historic pub, its architects say.

The $57 million development known as 88 Wright St was approved by the State Commission Assessment Panel last month.

It will wrap around the 165-year-old heritage hotel with an atrium separating the two buildings.

A rooftop bar will be built as a third floor for the pub.

There will be a shop on the ground floor, then 15 storeys of offices and then two penthouse apartments for the owners.

A concept image of the planned tower.

The owners, a group of private Chinese investors, bought the property in 2015 and closed the pub – previously known as the Old Queens Arms Hotel – the following year.

Val Mohyla, Josh Carrabs and Ben Whittaker, of Mohyla Architects, designed the new building. The atrium will connect Wright and Compton streets and provide a sheltered communal area in a part of the city with very little public space. “We wanted to provide as our contribution to our city that walk-through, which celebrates the hotel in three dimensions,” Mr Whittaker said.

Buildings as tall as 88 Wright St – at 68m – were not allowed in the area until May.

Mr Mohyla said it would “lift the whole area”. “As it fills – and it will take a while to fill – it will create quite a large population on Wright St,” he said.

They expect law firms to be the largest lessees, with several large firms’ leases coming up for renewal in two to three years’ time, when the building is expected to be completed.

Automated blinds that track the sun will be built into the tower’s windows to reduce the need for airconditioning.