Urban Regeneration Company (URC) Liverpool Vision has confirmed that it is in talks with hoteliers for a luxury hotel at Kings Dock.
The URC is negotiating with the Hilton Group and other hoteliers about a four- or five-star hotel.
Hilton is understood to want consent for a casino in exchange for delivering Liverpool’s first five-star hotel.
The URC combined the announcement with the unveiling of the latest images of its plans for Kings Dock.
The plans for the 36-acre (14.6ha) site comprise:
- a 9,000-seat arena
- 1,500-capacity conference centre
- 1,800 houses
- 200,000 sq ft (18,600 sq m) of offices
- up to 40,000 sq ft (3,700 sq m) of leisure and shops
An exhibition of the plans is being held at the Moat House Hotel on Paradise Street, Liverpool, until Monday.
The entire £100m scheme will be partly financed by the public sector, with £35m set aside by the European Objective One programme, £8m from Liverpool council and £10m each from the North West Development Agency and landowner English Partnerships.
The conference centre and arena will be forward-funded by receipts of around £30m from the sale of sites earmarked for development as 200 to 300-unit residential scheme and a hotel.
A shortlist of architects and potential operating partners for the conference centre and arena were unveiled last year.
The competing architects are:
- Foster & Partners
- Rafael Vinoly
- HOK Sport
- Skidmore Owings & Merrill
- NBBJ Sport & Entertainment
- Wilkinson Eyre
The shortlist of operating partners is:
- Arrowcroft Bravo Consortium
- Clear Channel
- Sextant
The plans for Kings Dock were revised last year after a proposal by Everton Football Club to build a stadium on the waterfront site collapsed.
EDAW is masterplanner on the revised proposals.
References: EGi News 29/01/04
