UK: The Bloc Hotel in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter is to be extended with 30 apart-hotel rooms.
The 73-room property in Caroline Street is planning to add 30 apart-hotel rooms in an adjoining vacant building.
Aimed at business travellers, the rooms will feature a kitchenette, dining and lounge areas and a desk.
Bloc co-founder Colin Graham said: “The rooms in the extension will have a microwave and fridge but not an oven or hob due to these requiring different fire regulations. Also, we want to draw people to businesses in the local area such as pubs and restaurants.”
“There won’t be a minimum or maximum stay in the apart-hotel but the building will be different from some of the others in the city which were built as apartments but are now being used as apart-hotel rooms. Ours is a specifically designed product and we believe it is the first of its kind in the city,” he added.
The extension has been design by Birmingham practice BPN Architects and will be built by Bloc’s sister company Box Build.
Graham added: “Birmingham will be our test bed to make sure we get this right and we’re hoping to be open by next May or June. We are also very close to signing a deal for another major hotel site and are considering city centre locations in London and the US as somewhere like New York is perfect for this type of hotel. We hope to have 10 new hotels open within the first five years of trading and we’re pushing very hard on that front.”
Bloc opened its first hotel in April 2011 which was followed by a second site at Gatwick Airport in February this year.
www.blochotels.com</p
