MILLION-dollar views over Launceston and up the Tamar River await those with enough cash for a penthouse room at the Silo Hotel.
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A development application for the $16 million, 79-room hotel, was submitted to Launceston City Council last week.
In a tour of the site yesterday, developer Errol Stewart showed aldermen, council staff and the Launceston Flood Authority’s Alan Birchmore and Andrew Fullard, the view from the top of the disused silos – 10 storeys up.
All going well, he hopes to begin work by the end of the year and be complete by the summer of 2016.
In early August, The Examiner reported that a potential cost blowout had seen Mr Stewart go back to the drawing board to revise his plan.
This will see 68 hotel rooms inside the silos and a further 11 in a separate structure on level one.
Each silo room will feature an enclosed balcony, while the 10th floor will have four premier suites that take up the whole circumference of each silo and have significantly larger balconies.
Level one will feature a cafe, restaurant, bar and lounge area.
While the ground floor will have a gym, two meeting rooms 100-square metres in size and a lounge.
The underground car park adjacent to this will double as a tradeshow centre.
Mr Stewart said he hoped to save a bit on the $16 million cost.
‘‘I’d like to think we can save a bit on that because obviously if you can save 10 per cent, you save $1.6 million, so it’s pretty substantial,’’ he said.
‘‘We’ve got a top-end budget of $200,000 a room but we think we can do better than that with some savings on the way through.’’
Mr Stewart has also put in a request to council to demolish the neighbouring old woolstore, with the intention of using the timber trusses in the level one hotel rooms.
Some of the other large timber beams would be incorporated into the silo, so there remains a link of what the area was once used for he said.
‘‘We think that’s a really important element, that you’ll still see buildings that look like the old woolstore sitting in front of the silos,’’ he said.
Mr Stewart said he was confident about the sustainability of the hotel, even through the winter months and was looking at around a $200 a night room cost.