Whitbread has acquired the freehold of the 42,000 sq ft Verity House office building in Leeds with a view to redeveloping it into a Premier Inn hotel.
The detached building, which was built in 2000, is located in the South Bank area of the city less than a three-minute walk to Leeds railway station.
Whitbread intends to seek planning consent for the retrofit and extension of the L-shaped building and will convert it into a Premier Inn hotel offering around 120 bedrooms.
Jill Anderson, acquisitions manager for Whitbread, said: “Whitbread has a long and successful track record of converting office buildings into popular budget hotels. It is a proven route to expanding our presence in popular locations like Leeds city centre where development opportunities are limited and where we have a requirement to grow. Converting offices into hotels also provides obvious benefits to the environment by extending the life of existing buildings and reducing the embodied carbon of development.
“Verity House makes for a superb hotel location given its proximity to the station and all the amenities in Leeds city centre. It complements our existing network of eight Premier Inn’s across the city and as a freehold purchase it demonstrates Whitbread’s willingness to take on planning and development risk to secure exceptional locations for our guests. The location has huge potential and I’m looking forward to working with the city council’s planning team on repurposing the building.”
Whitbread was advised by WSB property consultants and the vendor was advised by Commercial Property Partners.
