Private and public players need to come together to find creative ways of bridging the gap between their imperatives in order to help hotel development act as a catalyst for economic regeneration. However, they also need to understand the limitations that each of them is working within.
Those were the views of a panel discussing Linking Infrastructure and Opportunity: Public-Private Synergy to Enhance Hospitality Development on day one of the AHC at Manchester Central.
Accor VP Development Philip Lassman stressed that for an international hotel brand such as his, one of the key elements for progressing a project was this mutual understanding about what each partner can do, though he warned that understanding the limitations public and private organisations are working within is equally important.
“It’s about taking the time to investigate and understand the way we can work together,” Lassman said. “Everyone is very focused on what they want and what they can’t do, but we need to be working on achievable outcomes.”
Repurposing Needs Backing
As an example, he cited the challenge over the redevelopment and repurposing of existing buildings such as unwanted and vacant office or retail space, which on the face of it are ripe for conversion to uses such as hospitality.
“These buildings need a lot investigation and homework in terms of how long it is going to take and what might be behind the walls,” he said. “The key thing is about the right asset in the right location. It’s not even about whether it’s a luxury or budget property, regardless of this the hotel needs to be the centrepiece of the local area”
City of Wolverhampton Council Chief Executive Tim Johnson was also keen to stress the ways that local authorities can help to create opportunities for developers and investors and said that he saw the hotel market as an “incredibly important sector” in terms of its wider role with local economies.
“In the case of Wolverhampton, we have a number of international businesses which creates demand for hotel rooms, we have a Premier League football club in the city centre. The missing part of the equation is the hotel sector [in the city], it’s part of the eco-system we need to get right,” he said.
Johnson said that the local authority was open to “quality propositions” and said that the council wanted to be a good partner because the economic benefits for a city such as Wolverhampton are very tangible.
“We feel we have all the demand drivers, and as the local authority we have the land assets. Maybe we suffer from Birmingham being 20 minutes down the road, which is very well served by hotels. We’re more optimistic about mixed use, phased opportunities that can be flexed,” he said, though he admitted that he was frustrated that a successful hotel asset was yet to be delivered for the city centre.
Land Needs To Be Unlocked
The land element available through public bodies was a factor also brought up by Summix Partner Niamh O’Connor, who stressed that the public sector tends to have land available, as she called for private and public organisations to come together with proposals to unlock that land.
“We feel there is a benefit of including a hotel as part of a mixed use project, with longer term place making benefits, jobs creation, plus the boost to local house prices too,” she said. “So we see hotels as a catalyst, especially as they can be delivered and operational within two years as a key component in a blended living environment and are often the first element of such a scheme.”
Meanwhile, Colliers Director Hotel Advisory Services Cherise Cochrane cautioned that the pace that things move within local authorities can also be a challenge and a frustration for private businesses.
She also said that planning policy rigidity remains an issue, especially for conversion of property assets from one class to another.
“Repurposing is a great example of bringing unused assets back to life, yet so many policies are in place that prevent the use of those sites. Each council’s appetite for risk is very different but it’s about alignment of interests and bridging the gap between both parties,” she added.
“The important thing is for everyone to be looking at the bigger picture in terms of what a hotel can bring and the wider economic benefits.”