Townsville stadium hotel project sparks back to life
After Covid stifled construction plans for the hotel next to Townsville’s stadium, the project is now kicking up a gear.
Townsville
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THE $40 million DoubleTree by Hilton Townsville hotel project is stirring back to life after a forced hibernation period brought on by the Covid pandemic.
Planned to stand at the precinct alongside the Queensland Country Bank Stadium and the Cowboys Community, Training and High Performance Centre, the upscale seven storey 166-room hotel was due to begin construction in the first quarter of 2021.
After the Covid pandemic spiked those plans, it has been revealed that construction is planned to begin in mid-2022, with the hotel ready for guests for the start of the 2023 NRL season.
The hotel project promises to inject millions into the local economy while creating 168 full time equivalent jobs during the construction phase and 129 FTE jobs once complete.
Speaking on behalf of project proponent Focus Pacific, their chief executive Michael Graham said closed international and domestic borders, tourist numbers drying up, banks unwilling to lend money for hotel projects, and a major Malaysian funding partner walking away from the project, triggered a rethink on the way forward.
“What we decided was to rethink our capital approach to the project itself so I introduced some significant private capital to support the project going forward,” Mr Graham said.
With the backing of significant capital investment partners and major banks’ renewed interest in backing appropriate hotel development projects, he said they were “capital rich” and the project ready to push on with the next phase.
“We’re now moving forward to getting this project into our construction-ready mode,” he said.
“We’ve gone back to our architects and our structural engineers in the last fortnight, and we’ve commissioned them to commence work on final documented drawings that will be put to market, so that’s a big step.”
He hoped they would have a tender set available for the market within the next 12 weeks before launching into a full tender selection process where they could choose the appropriate builder and move straight into construction mode.
Focus Pacific was also looking at ways it could diversify the offering to capture a broader market.
“Covid made us stop and be commercially sensible about what we were doing, but it also made us pivot to a point where we understand that there’s an opportunity to deliver a hotel that’s not just for commercial travellers, but also has a tourism aspect attached to it,” Mr Graham said.
He said Covid gave Australians a real appreciation for domestic tourism and exploring our own backyard.
“We’re looking at that saying, well, there is an opportunity to capture some of that market,” he said.
At the stadium on May 28 for the Cowboys versus Warriors game, Mr Graham watched with great interest how the crowds flowed to and from the games, studying the demographic, and considering how their hotel would attract and cater for the visitors.
“I’m not talking wholesale changes, but some subtleties around can we tweak 10 per cent of the rooms,” he said.
“We’re looking at just potentially building some rooms that might cater better for the family market.”
Additionally, he said they were in significant discussions with providers in the disability arena “who are all screaming out for hotels to be more supportive of that sector”.
“We’re looking at, at identifying, shifting some of the rooms to cater for that need,” he said.
“There’s also a fairly strong demand at the moment for hospital grade hotel suites, for people looking for accommodation in hotels or suites after they’ve come out of an operation.
“We’re talking to a number of providers at the moment about potentially delivering some of the rooms that would cater for that market as well.”
Mr Graham was extremely upbeat about Townsville’s future prospects and said the economic rebuilding process was creating new opportunities and a positive mindset.
“I can’t say I’ve actually seen Townsville as optimistic about its future today as I have when I compare it to five, or even 10 years ago,” he said.
“I think we’re coming into some very good times in the North.”
Originally published as Townsville stadium hotel project sparks back to life
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