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Travelodge, the UK’s fastest-growing hotel company, has appointed national property and construction consultancy Wakemans to manage the redevelopment of a former office building in Barking into a £2.75m hotel.
Wakemans is responsible for all pre-contract work on the new hotel, which is being developed by Redrow Regeneration, a company at the forefront of large scale regeneration which aims to deliver sustainable new communities.
The new 66-bed Travelodge is part of Barking Central, a landmark mixed use development at the heart of the regeneration of Barking town centre. In addition to providing housing – 518 private and affordable new apartments – for the growing population, Barking Central is also creating a focus for the town centre with retail and commercial space, an arboretum and council services such as the new Barking Learning Centre, which opened last June and will help to revitalise education and employment opportunities in the borough.
Planning consent had been granted for offices and contractor Ardmall got underway with the development last year. However, the design was subsequently modified to allow more flexibility and revised consent was obtained for ground floor retail units, including shops, bars and cafés, with the three-storey Travelodge above.
Barking Central is intended to provide a welcome boost to the local economy and this, in turn, will encourage businesses to invest.
“The London Borough of Barking and Dagenham has adopted a strict green policy which means all new commercial development is driven by sustainability. The new Travelodge will benefit from being linked to the local district power station, a combined heat and power plant which will enable the hotel to use waste energy for highly efficient heating,” says Wakemans Associate Director Nigel Himpson.
Barking is a prime site for Travelodge because it is part of the Thames Gateway redevelopment, one of Europe’s most extensive regeneration sites.
“Rejuvenation of the town centre and the Olympic Games will put Barking on the map, so opening a new hotel here will help us achieve our objective of becoming the biggest budget hotel operator in London by 2012,” says Travelodge Commercial Director Paul Harvey.
Travelodge has exchanged contracts on 13 new projects, representing 962 rooms, so far this year, with a further 15 in the pipeline. It plans to add 4,000 new rooms – at 44 hotels – by the end of 2008. The Barking Travelodge is scheduled for completion in the fourth quarter of 2008.
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