THE man behind the Salamanca silos redevelopment has some advice for Launceston entrepreneur Errol Stewart.
Silos are "a real work of art".
Mr Stewart has proposed an 11-storey hotel with restaurants, bars and a conference space in the old grain silos built in the late 1950s at Invermay.
Hobart developer Geoff Harper carried out a similar project on the Salamanca waterfront 10 years ago with the difference being he converted the silos in to apartments.
"I think (the Launceston silos) are smaller in diameter, which was the thing that turned us off making them in to residential, but they will make great hotel units," Mr Harper said this week.
"There's so much you can do with them."
Mr Harper said the most trying aspect of the Salamanca project was convincing people the silos would be big enough to live in.
"People looked at them and thought they were going to be really small and pokey," he said.
To change their opinions he drew their diameter on the road in front of the silos.
"You have to actually extend people's thoughts, they have to be able to walk in and say, `I don't have that at home,"' he said.
Another challenge was working with the silos' curves.
"Your bedheads are straight your kitchen benches need to be straight you can't bend a kitchen cupboard and have a drawer in it."
He wished Mr Stewart's proposal well saying the Hobart silos would be "a landmark forever".
"In today's society why should you take a 1000 tonnes of concrete up to the tip and just dump it," he said.
