New two-in-one, $230 million hotel ready to open at Melbourne Airport

A $230 million hotel property opening on July 1 will add 464 three- and four-star rooms to Melbourne Airport – with no shuttle required between check-out and check-in.

Located next door to the T4 Transport Hub and a five-minute walk from the combined T3 and T4 security screening, the two-hotels-in-one Novotel and ibis Styles Melbourne Airport is the first new-build hotel on the Melbourne Airport site in 20 years, joining the recently renovated ParkRoyal and a little further afield, the Holiday Inn, Mantra Tullamarine, ibis budget and Quest Melbourne Airport.

The new Novotel and ibis Styles Melbourne Airport is the airport’s first new hotel in 20 years.

The fact that the airport has room for such a new facility is a triumph in itself. When a new airport was being planned for Melbourne in the mid-1960s, then rural Tullamarine, to the north-west of the city centre, was chosen because of several factors, including the scale of land that could be acquired, both as a sound barrier to surrounding settlements and for future-proofing the facility.

Eventually opened in 1970 and now run by the privatised Federal Airports Corporation, Melbourne Airport covers 2741 hectares – that’s three times the size of Kingsford Smith and still bigger than it and the new Western Sydney site combined, for those playing the Melbourne/Sydney rivalry game.

It’s 24 kilometres and probably a minimum 30 minutes to the CBD by car or the trusty airport bus. Argy-bargy continues as to whether Melbourne will get an airport train any time soon (and in the rivalry game, Sydney totally wins with its efficient rail link).

But the choice of Tullamarine has proved a good one in terms of modern-day development. Melbourne was recently named Best Airport in Australia and the Pacific at the Skytrax World Airport Awards.

“We’ve got a huge strategic advantage in that all the terminal buildings are under one roof but expanding the precinct around that is a big part of the long-term future of the place,” says executive Jai McDermott, who heads up transport, property and retail operations at Melbourne Airport.

One of the rooms at the Novotel.

Those involved in the development of the Novotel and ibis Styles Melbourne Airport use the words “precinct” and “village” liberally, emphasising their vision of the place not just being one where people catch planes and get off them but also, similar to Singapore’s Changi, one where meetings might be held, and locals might congregate.

The airport site is home to URBNSURF Wave Park and The Hangar, the home of the Essendon Football Club. There is an extensive business park as well, and nearby residential areas, not to mention more than 14,000 airport workers (and still a lot of unused acreage).

The indoor heated pool, part of Melbourne’s first airport health and wellbeing club.

And so, the hotel has been designed to invite not just overnight guests in, but also casual visitors.

Architects FK Australia (or Fender Katsalidis) were tasked with creating the L-shaped hotel . Inspired by all things aeronautical, it features a striking “aerofoil” in the design housing functional spaces. The aerofoil also provides shade to what’s hoped will be a buzzy forecourt.

FK’s James Pearce says, within his team and collaborators Woods Bagot who did the hotel interiors as well as Techne who did the F&B space designs, a great deal of thought was given to all the different types of users of the hotel.

To that end, “the cafes and bars needed to have an outside frontage that’s visible so it can be a case of, ‘Oh, that looks great, let’s go and have a drink,’ or ‘I’ll meet you there’ sort of thing.

An ibis Styles room at Melbourne Airport.

“So the outside bar and cafe are full of life and activity, but then you transition into the hotel – a garden separates the activity of the aerofoil from the lobby and conferencing area of the hotel and then you reach a rough cobbled floor referencing Melbourne’s laneways, which, when you roll your bag across it, gives a sensory cue that you are entering somewhere new. The lobby is very spacious but calm and soothing and separated from the hubbub.”

Operated by Accor, the hotel includes three food and beverage outlets, function facilities for up to 330 guests, and, in the aerofoil, a co-working space as well as Higher State, Melbourne’s first airport health and wellbeing club with an indoor heated pool, sauna, massage and fitness centre.

With all that going on, who knows? Melbourne’s next big Skytrax Award might be Best Airport Hotel, an honour that’s been bestowed on the Crowne Plaza Changi for nine years straight.

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