MEININGER Hotels and investor LGIM Real Assets (Legal & General) have signed an agreement for a hotel in Glasgow. The hotel will be located on West George Street opposite Queen Street Train Station and will offer 160 rooms and 590 beds. The opening is scheduled for 2020.
Due to its strategic location in the centre of Glasgow, opposite to Queen Street Train Station which is currently undergoing a major redevelopment, many of the city's sights, museums and monuments are within walking distance from the hotel. Equally, there are numerous restaurants, pubs and venues nearby. The Gallery of Modern Art is just a 3-minute walk from the hotel and the Royal Concert Hall just 9 minutes.
Due to its proximity to the train station, the hotel is well connected to both local and long-distance destinations, with trains running to the north of Scotland and to Edinburgh, which can easily be reached within 40 minutes. The nearest underground station is also just 160 meters from the hotel.
The MEININGER Hotel will have 160 rooms and 590 beds, spread over 5 floors of the new building. The room types will range from classic double rooms through private multi-bed rooms to beds in a dorm room. The public areas such as reception, lobby, lounge, breakfast room and bar as well as a guest kitchen and game zone, which are all typical features of a MEININGER, will be located on the first floor of the building. At basement, ground and mezzanine levels the scheme will also create around 1400 sqm of new retail space.
The building was designed by the architectural practice NORR.
Derek Reid, Project Director for Architects NORR Consultants, stated "We are immensely proud to have assisted Legal + General and MEININGER Hotels in achieving not only this milestone, but also the recent milestone of securing Planning permission. Our design for the building seeks to balance an appropriate response to a strategic location within Glasgow City Centre Conservation Area with capturing the exciting dynamic of the MEININGER Hotel brand. We look forward to continuing our role on the project through to project completion and opening."
The hotel in Glasgow will be the second hotel for the MEININGER Group in the UK. MEININGER already operates a hotel in London since 2006. Hannes Spanring, CEO of MEININGER Hotels, is pleased about the new project: "Great Britain is a very important market for us and Glasgow as Scotland's largest city is the perfect location for another MEININGER hotel in the UK. The Glasgow hotel is an excellent addition to our portfolio, due to its prime location in the heart of the city centre."
The MEININGER Hotels continue to expand. This year another 6 hotels are going to open in Europe. Including Glasgow, a total of 15 projects are under development and further projects are being searched for. "The focus is still on Europe, but we are also looking for opportunities in North America and South Asia," says Hannes Spanring.
Craig Westmacott, Senior Fund Manager, LGIM Real Assets, said: "We are pleased to be working with MEININGER Hotels as they seek to expand their successful brand into the UK. This site is an excellent location for a new hotel and together with the redevelopment of Queen Street station will bring significant improvements to this key area of Glasgow city centre."
About MEININGER Hotels:
MEININGER is a subsidiary of Holidaybreak Ltd, a travel group specialising in educational and activity holidays. Holidaybreak Ltd is a subsidiary of Prometheon Holdings (UK) Ltd, which is a part of Cox & Kings Ltd. Cox & Kings Ltd is listed on the National Stock Exchange, the BSE Ltd in Mumbai.
MEININGER is a unique hotel product that combines the service and comfort of an international budget hotel with extra facilities, such as a guest kitchen and a games zone. The central location, high quality furnishings and fair prices appeal to people of all ages and backgrounds. With the right dose of MEININGER humour and an enthusiastic team, MEININGER hotels with their guests from all over the world become a real home away from home.
The bedrooms range from traditional double rooms through private rooms with multiple beds right down to a bed in a dorm room. The hotels are tailored and adapted to the specific location and the market served by the hotel. The unique and flexible design of each hotel makes it possible to appeal to various target groups alike, such as school groups, families, individual travellers and corporate guests.
MEININGER currently operates 20 hybrid hotels in Europe, with a total of 10,492 beds in 12 European cities including Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels, Copenhagen, Frankfurt/Main, Hamburg, Leipzig, London, Milan, Munich, Salzburg and Vienna. Contracts for 15 new hotels in Berlin, Brussels, Budapest, Dresden, Geneva, Heidelberg, Lyon, Milan, Munich, Paris, Rome, Saint Petersburg, Zurich and now Glasgow have already been signed. MEININGER has ambitious plans for growth - in this regard, the focus is no longer only on Europe - possibilities for an expansion to North America and Asia are also being sounded out.
Target locations in the UK beside London and Glasgow are Edinburgh, Manchester and Liverpool.
In the 'TREUGAST Investment Ranking 2016', the MEININGER Group achieved an AA rating. The group is headquartered in Berlin.
About Legal & General:
LGIM Real Assets
LGIM Real Assets is a division of Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM), one of Europe's largest institutional asset managers and a major global investor. LGIM manages £983.3bn in assets on behalf of over 3,200 clients (as at 31 Dec 2017), providing products and solutions spanning all asset classes. LGIM Real Assets, headed up by Bill Hughes, has AUM of £27bn (as at 31 Dec 2017), actively investing and managing assets across commercial property, private residential, infrastructure and property lending and, most recently, corporate credit.
Legal & General Group
Established in 1836, Legal & General is one of the UK's leading financial services groups and a major global investor, with a number of growing businesses in the US. Over fifteen million people worldwide rely on us to help them save for the future and to protect their families and their homes.
We operate in three principal areas:
-Investing & Annuities, where we manage £58bn of retirement annuities for policyholders and invest for their long term return within Legal & General Retirement, as well as investing our own balance sheet within Legal & General Capital;
-Investment Management, where we have £983bn in total assets under management from clients in the UK, US, Asia and EMEA and a leading UK workplace savings and retail investments business within LGIM; and
-Insurance, where we provide protection against life events for customers, with £2.9bn of gross written premiums principally in life insurance in the UK and US within Legal & General insurance and household insurance in the UK within our General insurance division.
About NORR:
NORR Consultants Ltd is a multi-award winning international architectural practice that has been designing and building worldwide for many years with proven experience in urban planning, architecture, landscape and interior design.
Its diverse portfolio includes work in retail, corporate, residential, education, government, healthcare, industrial, mixed-use, and transport sectors, where it is recognised for delivering intelligent solutions that combine creative excellence with commercial success.
With 8 studios across the UK, NORR is part of the internationally acclaimed multi-disciplinary Ingenium Group with over 140 staff in the UK and over 900 globally. NORR delivers a diverse range of exciting landmark projects across the UK and Europe and with our sister companies working in Asia, the Middle East and North America.
