The former Dunnes store on Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow could be turned into a budget boutique hotel under plans submitted by Mosaic Architecture & Design .
The seven-storey art deco building which was built in 1929 and once housed C&A has been pencilled in as a 112-bedroom Qtel hotel and café-restaurant.
Developer Manor Property Group , which is behind a Qtel hotel in Hull and student accommodation under the Qdos brand, said it would invest £12 million in the Glasgow site.
Proposals include a rooftop extension with bedrooms and a private hotel gym, meeting rooms for hire and back of house accommodation in the basement.
The firm hopes to use outside tables and chairs in the street for the restaurant during summer.
Mark Bailey, director of Manor Property Group, said: “The plans for our first Qtel-branded hotel, on Glasgow’s Sauchiehall Street, will see this art deco building given a new lease of life, deliver a 112-bedroom hotel, all day café bar and restaurant and create 50 full time jobs.
“We have identified hotels as a key area for development and intend to expand our existing nine hotel portfolio by developing six more hotels of 100+ guestrooms, with the possibility of further expansion once this milepost has been reached.”
Glasgow-based Mosaic will lead the project to deliver the first Qtel in Scotland.
Stephen Mallon, director of Mosaic, said: “It is an honour to be involved in this prestigious development for Manor Property Group, another major hotel project for the city following on from our Yotel project for Starwood on Argyle Street, which is currently on site.
“It is hoped that this development will add to the recent investment in this part of Sauchiehall Street, including the Willow Tea Rooms and the Sauchiehall Centre, to reinvigorate this part of the street, tying-in with the council’s Avenues initiative, currently under construction further along Sauchiehall Street.
“The design is one we feel is respectful of the existing building and context, using a traditional mansard form reinterpreted in a modern fashion with new materiality. While undertaking research into the existing property, we discovered that the now demolished building that sat on the site previously was Glasgow’s very own ‘Balmoral Hotel’, which seems to provide a neat symmetry for this project.”
