Whitbread has acquired the freehold of a 45,000 sq ft office building in Central London with a view to converting it into a hotel.
The company has acquired Victory House at 30-34 Kingsway from a private overseas investor for an undisclosed sum.
Subject to planning, Whitbread intends to convert the building, which is currently occupied until spring 2026, into a hub by Premier Inn hotel offering around 200-bedrooms.
Jonathan Langdon, senior acquisition manager at Whitbread, said: “The vision behind hub by Premier Inn is to offer all the great things about Premier Inn in the most central, accessible and exciting places. Kingsway is one of those stand-out locations being surrounded by London’s best entertainment, restaurants, cultural venues and institutions – somewhere we know our customers will want to stay.
“Investing here matches our network plan and complements our trading and pipeline hotels, neatly ‘bookending’ Covent Garden with our St Martin’s Lane hotel to the west. It also rounds off an especially active year for Whitbread in Central and Inner London where we have made four significant purchases and lease commitments, collectively totalling more than £100m of investment and adding close to 1,000 prime located rooms into our pipeline.
“We’re pleased to have secured the Kingsway location quickly off-market and are excited to begin the planning journey with Camden Council next year, with a goal to bring the location onto our trading network in 2028.”
Whitbread was advised on the transaction by Ingleby Trice and the vendor was advised by JLL and Savills.
