Construction to begin soon on Townsville’s $40m DoubleTree by Hilton hotel

The long-awaited $40m hotel project at Queensland Country Bank Stadium will soon become reality, delivering a luxury accommodation option and a jobs bonanza for Townsville.

SOD is expected to be turned on Townsville’s long-awaited $40m DoubleTree by Hilton hotel project before the end of the year.

After encountering a series of obstacles, including the Covid-19 pandemic, which repeatedly pushed back the timeline to build the upscale seven-storey 166-room hotel, “all the ducks are now in a row” for the project to push ahead.

Brisbane-based Focus Pacific chief executive Michael Graham, who was born and bred in Townsville, has been the driving force behind the project for the past three years.

Double Tree hotel project update

Touring the hotel site, on the western side of Queensland Country Bank Stadium – and accompanied by Hilton executives and Carey Group chief executive Matt Thomson and Stamford Capital director Chris Drummond – Mr Graham said he felt excited, “like a kid in a lolly shop”.

He expects the project to be a boon for the strengthening local economy, creating 168 full-time jobs during the 70-week construction phase and an estimated 129 full-time jobs once completed.

“The project has advanced significantly in the last six months or so,” Mr Graham said.

“We couldn’t do much prior to now because there was still an uncertainty around what the world looked like.

“We’ve been working meticulously to get the project live, in terms of getting Hilton to adopt what they believe to be the future post-Covid.

“They’ve been having a deep look at the marketplace, understanding just what their trading forecasts look like.

“I’m pleased to say it is looking incredibly positive in terms of the behaviour in the post-Covid world.

“We’re seeing good numbers in comparable products and other regional centres around Australia and that gives us a lot of confidence that we’re coming out of a very dark spot after the last few years.”

Double Tree hotel project update

Mr Graham revealed they had worked closely with Townsville City Council to overcome a complication in securing the land title for the hotel due to a caveat linked to the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility and the Cowboys Centre of Excellence.

After the relevant parties had signed off unconditionally three weeks ago, Mr Graham expected the project to become official within the fortnight, paving the way “to sign leases with the council, to sign our management agreement formally with Hilton and, importantly, to drive the financial outcomes throughout our capital partners and lenders”.

“We’ve really only just come to a point where banks are starting to get incredibly positive about the region again, because all of the major (banks) had a reluctance to get too soon engrossed in regional, and certainly not tourism, hospitality, hotel-type interests like this,” Mr Graham said.

“There’s been a dramatic shift over the past six months to allow us to even be having these conversations.”

Mr Graham said they had worked closely with consultants and a number of builders to mitigate the construction challenges associated with Covid-19, including supply-chain issues, price hikes and delays. Representing Australia’s largest property finance specialist, Stamford Capital director Mr Drummond said they had been very keen to get into quality projects in regional areas and “this is right up there in our view”.

“It’s taken some time. These things don’t happen overnight. I think having the DoubleTree by Hilton brand on board will be extremely good for Townsville,” he said.

Knowing the “finance markets inside out”, he said banks had the desire to fund projects such as this in regional areas.

“There’s a lot of interest in it so we’re keen to see it all come to fruition,” Mr drummond said.

“The capital structure for the project is very sound, and it’s going to happen, I’ve got no doubt about that.”

Originally published as Construction to begin soon on Townsville’s $40m DoubleTree by Hilton hotel