One of Liverpool’s most iconic independent brands, Hope Street Hotel, is to complete its transformative development in Spring 2020. The city’s original boutique hotel is extending into and building upon the adjacent 1931 Grade II-listed premises, originally The Royal School for the Blind, seamlessly combining some of Liverpool’s finest old buildings with a contemporary guest experience.
This will mark the independently owned hotel’s second expansion since opening in 2004 and will bring more of its unique offering to the city, demonstrating Hope Street Hotel’s continued role in the regeneration of Hope Street and Liverpool’s Georgian Quarter.
With distinctive and complex architecture alongside sympathetic interior design, Hope Street Hotel’s new development will add 62 top category rooms including 15 suites, a clubroom, a new gym, and an extensive spa, called Hope Street Hotel Spa, which will include an indoor swimming pool and indoor-outdoor vitality pool. There will also be Liverpool’s first hotel cinema with 40 seats and its own bar – a room with exposed pitch pine roof trusses, six arched 1851 windows, and Cheshire Pink brick walls. A new fifth-floor event space which will have two terraces – one overlooking the city centre and the other over the Metropolitan Cathedral.
Opened and developed by Dave Brewitt, a local resident since 1981, Hope Street Hotel has grown three-fold in the last 15 years, and has become a firm favourite for locals and visitors to Liverpool alike. The newest project has been a complex refurbishment and new-build extension, striking a balance between aesthetics and economy, bringing together the buildings from four different eras, over four different footprints and resulting in just over 30 different floor levels. A neglected yet integral part of the city’s heritage, moulding the original School for the Blind to be part of Hope Street Hotel has required detailed architecture to thread a new eight-storey building over, under and alongside the listed structure and businesses – Pizza Express and 92º coffee shop. Building eight stories out of the original courtyard and six stories on top of 92º coffee shop required complex engineering to connect the eight levels of the two buildings, using 200 tonnes of steel to weave through and around the two structures – all undertaken whilst keeping the existing hotel and associated businesses open.
Internally, careful considerations have been made to ensure the two buildings flow seamlessly to create handsome public spaces in keeping with Hope Street Hotel’s current identity as the city’s original design-led hotel. The hotel’s simple design will evoke a sense of space that complements the original Victorian warehouse interior. Original features such as pitch pine beams, Victorian Cheshire pink and red Art Deco brick walls, Portland stone oak floors, cast-iron pillars and picture windows – seen in the original part of the hotel – will be elements carried through into each part of the new development.
Commenting on Hope Street Hotel’s latest development, Dave Brewitt said “I am massively proud of Hope Street Hotel’s 15-year success and growth. We opened in 2004 as Liverpool’s first boutique hotel, restoring, converting and extending a derelict
and redundant 1869 warehouse.
“This latest – and most ambitious – expansion is a tremendously complex project. Threading a new eight-storey building over, under and alongside the listed former Royal School for the Blind, and linking it to the existing hotel has been a mammoth 3-D jigsaw – all done while keeping the hotel open throughout the build.
“I am delighted to have been able to bring the 1851 and 1931 School buildings back into sustainable use. Maintaining original architectural features, we have created new hotel spaces, including 62 rooms, roof-top suites, a spa, a swimming pool, a clubroom, our very own 40-seat cinema and a dramatic new events space on the fifth floor.
Our aim is to remain at the forefront of Liverpool’s hotel offer. This development continues our original ambition to deliver exemplary hospitality on Hope Street.”
The new developments are due to open in Spring 2020. For more information visit www.hopestreethotel.co.uk.
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