U.K.’s First Sofitel Set To Open

LONDON— The first Sofitel hotel in the U.K. is scheduled to open here this week (April 29, 2002), according to a recent report in Caterer & Hotelkeeper. Sofitel is the luxury chain of French group Accor, which has spent £56m ($81,564,048 U.S.) turning a 125,000 square feet former bank into a 186-bedroom hotel. Patrick Brown, director/Accor U.K. construction, said the work on the building had been “very complicated” because of its listed status. Removal of the banks vaults with their half-meter-thick doors took a lot longer than expected and contributed to the hotel opening more than a year later than its original target of January 2001. Accor has a 125-year lease on the circa 1923 building, which is owned by the Crown Estate. The amount that Accor pays for the lease each year is inflation-linked. Accors plan for a hotel was approved in 1999 after the building had stood unused for two years. Marylebone Warwick Balfour was the developer. SOURCE: Caterer & Hotelkeeper