Talking Point: Build city on back of tourist boom

Terry Choi wants to build one of many more hotels needed in the Tasmanian capital.

MUST CREDIT - Kyle Gardner, Aerial Vision Australia Drone footage of the Australian 2015 Wooden Boat Festival. Hobart Waterfront. Digitally compiled panorama by Richard Jupe MUST CREDIT - Kyle Gardner, Aerial Vision Australia

AS Tasmania’s tourism numbers continue to soar annually, it is estimated that the city of Hobart will lack some 1200 hotel rooms by 2020.

This is on top of the 1000 hotel rooms currently under development or development application – the data comes from BDA Marketing Planning, in a survey commissioned by Tourism Tasmania and Invest Tasmania.

Only last year, Tourism Research Australia figures showed that Tasmania recorded the biggest increase in international visitors of any state or territory, with a 28 per cent rise in the year to March.

The jump translated to an extra 197,000 international travellers, who contributed to a 42 per cent jump in expenditure. Those figures are both astonishing and indicative of the tourism boom we are enjoying.

However, in order to take full advantage of this, we need the tourism infrastructure to accommodate them.

Added to this is the “historic” tourism anecdote that 80 per cent of visitors coming to Tasmania want to come to Hobart – if they cannot come and stay here, they do not come.

I am a Tasmanian developer – my company is Ressen Property Group.

More definitively, I am a South Korean-born Tasmanian, who studied at the University of Tasmania and calls my adopted state home six months of the year.

My company was formed in Hobart in 2000. Since then, I have been involved in building land and home subdivisions in Kingston, Sorell, Montrose and two more recent developments at Geilston Bay and New Town.

With each of my developments, Ressen has partnered with Tasmanian companies to achieve the desired outcomes.

Ressen is also building apartments and a retirement village in Tweed Heads, NSW.

Ressen is proposing to build a $45 million hotel at 179 Macquarie St.

But after two appellants, one of which connected to the adjoining, international hotel development company, Fragrance Group, appealed successfully against my hotel at the Resource Management Planning Appeals Tribunal, I am now planning to take my case to the Tasmanian Supreme Court.

Why? Because Ressen wants to build an 11-storey, 225-room hotel – comprising hotel rooms and serviced apartments. Because we want to employ Tasmanians builders and apprentices to construct our hotel. Because we want to employ more Tasmanians in the hotel when it’s finished – hotel staff, chefs, waiters, cleaners – and all the associated companies and suppliers who will stock my hotel 365 days of the year.

In simple terms, my hotel was knocked back because the Hobart City Council had granted us discretion over height for our proposed 11 storeys. RMPAT approved us for heritage, carparking, use, but not height and density. Yet, next door, Fragrance Group’s approved hotel development will also rise 11 storeys with similar density.

And that is the reason we will exercise our legal rights within the Tasmanian Supreme Court.

I have no issue with the RMPAT process. I just want to be able to re-argue my case in front the RMPAT panel.

My hotel has been designed by award-winning Tasmanian architect Michael Cooper. My hotel gained approval from the Hobart City Council.

In Hobart today, we see cranes dotting the skyline … cranes mean economic development and jobs.

The Parliament Square development is coming out of the ground behind Parliament House.

It will also include a hotel on the corner of Murray and Davey streets. The new Myer Icon Complex will also house a hotel.

But Hobart needs even more hotel rooms – and the creation of more jobs to build them.

The hotel I plan to build will include studio guest rooms and one- or two-bedroom apartments, which will feature fully equipped kitchens and spacious balconies.

The development will also include amenities such as conference facilities, cafe, a heated swimming pool and spa, library with fireplace, a spectacular rooftop restaurant, state-of-the art fitness and wellbeing centre and 24-hour reception.

Each serviced apartment and hotel room will provide guests with functional elegant design, premium finish and smart layout.

There will also be presidential suites, with a built-in fireplace, wine fridge, coffee machine and impressive outdoor lounge and dining areas.

I believe that upper Macquarie St can host a new hotel precinct, catering for tourists and locals alike.

If I am successful, my hotel will sit between two other proposed developments, with another hotel planned for the old Hutchins School building.

For international and interstate guests, our site is extremely close to the entertainment precinct of Salamanca and Sullivans Cove. And if we are successful, Ressen will build its 225-room hotel for the benefit of my company, certainly, but also for the Tasmanian economy and the state’s tourism industry.

Terry Choi is managing director of Ressen Property Group.