Piccadilly's Trocadero building to be turned into West End's biggest budget hotel

 
Renovation: Piccadilly's Trocadero centre is to be turned into a hotel (Picture: Alex Lentati)

The huge Trocadero building on Piccadilly Circus is to be turned into the West End’s biggest budget hotel.

Work has already begun on the 583 room three star hotel, which will open in 2017 and where a night’s stay is likely to cost around £100 to £150.

It replaces an earlier plan for a much cheaper Tokyo style capsule hotel on the huge wedge shaped site between Shaftesbury Avenue and Coventry Street.

Thomas Dubaere, UK managing director of French hotel operator Accor, said: ”To have an affordable hotel of this size at the most prime location of the most visited city in the world next to one of the most often taken photographs in the world is unique.

“It is so close to the theatres, to Soho, everything is in easy walking distance. You will be able to come out of your room and everything is just five minutes away.”

The hotel will serve breakfast, which is included in the room rate, and have a bar but no full service restaurant. About 80 per cent of its guests are expected to be tourists.

The announcement will end years of uncertainty about the future of the Edwardian Grade II listed building, which served as a Lyons Corner House tea room and restaurant until the mid-Sixties. In the Eighties it was turned into an indoor theme park with rides, cinemas and shops but closed in February this year.

The company said the design of the hotel, which will be called Ibis Styles Piccadilly Circus, is likely to reflect the history of the area “with a hint of humour perfectly matching the electric eccentricity of the Trocadero.”

Over the centuries the site has served as a tennis court, circus, theatre, exhibition space and music hall as well as a restaurant.

The last budget hotel on this scale so close to the heart of the West End was the 1028 room Regent Palace hotel just off Regent Street, which closed in 2010. Most opening in the heart of the West End in recent years have been luxury five star hotels,

Accor is also turning a neighbouring building overlooking Leicester Square into a more expensive 80 room MGallery hotel, scheduled to open in late 2016.

Both sites are owned and will be developed by property company Criterion Capital, whose chief executive Asif Aziz said: ”These two hotel projects are part of our strategy for Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus.”

Mr Dubaere said its 48 London hotels were operating at around 90 per cent occupancy. The company has 208 hotels in Britain and plans to increase the total to 300 by 2018.

Gordon Innes, chief executive of promotion body London & Partners, said: “It’s great news that Accor are re-developing the Trocadero centre which is right in the heart of London’s West End and just minutes from some of the city’s most famous attractions.

“London’s hotel stock is always growing and currently offers 117,000 rooms, of which 50,000 are in the budget or three star range. In the next four years the number of rooms is set to expand by a further 40,000 with half of these hotels budget. So while the city offers some of the most luxurious hotels in the world we also offer a huge range of accommodation to suit everyone’s needs.”

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