Councillors urged to approve ‘2017’ Hilton hotel plans

Councillors are being recommended to approve proposals at a meeting on Wednesday for a 167-bedroomed Hilton Garden Inn and Conference centre on the site of the former Lexington Avenue’s nightclub on Ferensway.

It is one of a number of hotel developments being planned in the run up to 2017 and is partly on city council owned land. The tallest part of the building will be six storeys and overlook Ferensway.

The hotel includes a conference centre for everything from weddings to business meetings, with room for 750 people, and should, its backers say, help ensure the city centre, with 2017 approaching, “can re-establish itself as a gateway that welcomes the world.”

It comes as Hull Council goes to market to seek an operator to run a conference centre, which is part of a £42m development, announced last summer and which includes another four star hotel, on largely derelict land between the Princes Quay shopping centre and Castle Street.

Coun Steve Bayes, who holds the portfolio for visitor destination, said yesterday that the new Hilton should not impact on their plans, as they were of a different scale: “This would be complimentary (to what the council is planning); you need different sized venues for different events and this would specialise in weddings, people staying overnight, maybe a business meeting that needs a few rooms. For a city of our size we are under provided for by that sort of facility.”

Along with Princes Quay owners CIT, the council is the main landowner. CIT would develop the hotel. The council has provisionally allocated £30m towards the cost of building the conference and music centre which would take between 3000 and 4000 people. Coun Bayes said he expected five or six national operators to put in bids, which would give them a clearer idea of running costs. “We are trying to maximise the facilities without maximising the costs to local people,” he added.