PLANS for Errol Stewart’s Launceston Silos Hotel have changed, with the proposed revamp only seven storeys high.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
A fresh development application before the Launceston City Council for the Invermay site in Lindsay Street shows that the hotel will now be seven storeys, have 108 rooms and cost $20 million.
This is up from 79 rooms and $17 million but down from the 11-storey project that was originally planned.
‘‘It is a pretty major change from where we were and what we presented to the planning commission a year ago because we didn’t think we could hold it up,’’ Mr Stewart said.
‘‘But the initial drop piling we did in June last year gave us the confidence that we could hold up a heavier building on the north side of the silos. Primarily the reason we are doing it is to get more rooms and to make it more cost-effective. The application is for 114 rooms but with some changes yesterday [Friday] we are going to end up with 108 rooms.
‘‘One of the really big costs of 11 storeys is sprinkling the whole building once you go over 25 metres, so 25 metres will now be the highest floor and not 35 metres.’’
Mr Stewart said work would restart next week on stabilising the ground, with 75 more piles to be inserted.
He said about $4 million had been redirected by lowering the number of levels, reducing the number of fire sprinklers and pulling various other expenses into more rooms on the North side.
‘‘Nothing much else has really changed. We get a little more retail space downstairs perhaps — the building isn’t as big on the first floor, but it is bigger from the second to the seventh.’’
Mr Stewart said the project should be complete in 18 months.
The hotel will include an ancillary gym, cafe, bar and restaurant, meeting rooms, deck, Tamar River boating access and more than 90 car park spaces.
A traffic report by GHD into the hotel’s likely traffic implications suggests overall about 100 in and outbound movements during the morning peak hour and the same number in the evening.
The report said the hotel was unlikely to cause ‘‘significant loss in performance’’ of the Goderich and Lindsay street intersection with ‘‘delays increasing slightly in all peaks’’.
