Errol Stewart aims high with $16 million development for former silos on the edge of the Tamar River

DEVELOPER Errol Stewart denies a $16m conversion of wheat silos into a hotel on the banks of the Tamar is his gutsiest development.

JMC Group Managing Director Errol Stewart on top of the Silos at Launceston with the Launceston Seaport in the background

DEVELOPER and motor dealer Errol Stewart denies a $16 million conversion of wheat silos into a hotel on the banks of the Tamar is his gutsiest development.

“I don’t think its any more gutsy than anything else I have done in my life,” he said.

Mr Stewart developed the $30 million Seaport on the North Esk river out of an old shipyard in 2004.

Then in 2008, with the expectation of a Bell Bay pulp mill that never came, he developed the $18 million York Cove at George Town.

“I think the Seaport was more gutsy. When we bought the Seaport 10 years ago we did 60 rooms on the inside of the flood levee,” he said.

“This is on the protected side of the levee so we have got an advantage there.”

The Labor state government spent $1.5 million building a flood levee in 2013.

The silos are set to be transformed into a 79-room hotel in a $16 million project.

The Silos development will comprise 79 rooms in the 38m high silos at a construction cost of about $200,000 a room.

He said he would be joined by some private investors and would sell some assets and get bank finance for about 50 per cent of the cost.

“It is great to see local bankers prepared to invest in a hotel where they wouldn’t a decade ago because they were concerned there wasn’t enough economic viability,” he said.

It will have a two function rooms, a restaurant, cafe and bars, gymnasium and underground car park.

Mr Stewart said Launceston needed some new tourism products and had a shortage of hotel rooms in summer.

“The Seaport hotel has 60 rooms and it operated at 92 per cent occupancy for the whole of March,” he said.

His hope is for increased tourism into the city as well as an increase in market share.

He said his building company JMC Construction would employ 30 people and 70 sub contractors on the site.

The Seaport, one of Errol Stewart’s previous projects.