Bunnings newest store to be topped with luxury hotel
Bunnings has teamed with a luxury hotel to bring a new type of shopping experience to Melbourne’s east, complete with rooftop pool and restaurant. Here’s how it will look inside.
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Bunnings and a leading hotel developer have combined forces to offer a unique ‘two shops in one’ experience.
Hotel chain Accor will build a 183-room $70 million Mercure hotel — complete with restaurant, alfresco dining, rooftop pool, fitness centre and sundeck — above the hardware giant’s new $90 million double-storey store in Doncaster.
Construction of the first stage of the long-mooted development at 659 Doncaster Rd began last month.
An amended permit to replace 100 apartments with the hotel was approved by Manningham Council in June.
Manningham Leader has obtained exclusive artist impressions of the development, which will be six-storeys with three levels of underground parking.
Accor Pacific chief operating officer Simon McGrath said the hotel would be a flagship for the company.
“With the Victorian Government focused on decentralising business outside of the CBD, Doncaster has been identified as a growing pocket of Melbourne in need of new hotel supply,” he said.
“Accor are excited to bring the internationally recognised Mercure brand with its warm local hospitality to Doncaster.”
Bunnings’ acting general manager property Garry James said there was a need for a store in Doncaster and the site provided an opportunity to do something in line with the council’s vision for its Doncaster Hill precinct.
“We are always looking at opportunities to innovate the design of our stores and we have a number of different formats that cater for the local markets where we operate.” he said.
The hotel and the store will open in the second half of 2021 while construction for stage two of the project — a separate multistorey building with 160 apartments — will begin shortly after.
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Readers expressed concerns about the creation of more apartments and traffic chaos for Doncaster Hill on Manningham Leader’s Facebook page.
Alexandra Tsokas wrote: “Why is there more and more apartments when there’s not even a train line and congestion”, while Kristina Louise wrote: “How about fixing the traffic light issue there first?”
The council’s director of city planning and community, Angelo Kourambas, said the hotel would “strengthen the economic, cultural and tourism elements of the area, advancing Doncaster Hill as a destination in Melbourne’s east.”