The city is likely to get another Park hotel in three years. Apeejay Surrendra group, which owns and operates The Park chain of hotels, plans to bolster its presence in Bengal by opening its second hotel in Calcutta.
The hotel is likely to become operational by 2014. Slated to come up near the EM Bypass, the proposed Rs 500-crore hotel will have 250 rooms and 100 service apartments. Around 4 acres had been acquired for the project a few years back, and the group expects to get all clearances by the end of this year.
“With the formation of a stable government in Bengal, we believe that the atmosphere here is now more conducive to make investments. With our new hotel in Calcutta, we want to redefine the Park experience for our guests and patrons,” said Vijay Dewan, managing director of The Park Hotels.
“We expect our Calcutta project to get all clearances by the end of this year and we are hopeful to start construction thereafter.”“The funding of Rs 500 crore will include a mix of internal accruals of the company and external debt,” he said.
Skidmore Owings Merrill, a US-based architect firm, that designed one of the towers of the World Trade Centre, will design the hotel. The hotel is part of a larger plan to expand the group’s reach in the country. The group expects to add six hotels (including the one in Calcutta) within three to four years.
The projects include a 40-room property in Goa, a 150-room property in Kochi and 250-room properties in Pune, Calcutta and Jaipur. Investments worth Rs 1,000 crore have been earmarked for expansion. “We would like to have a strong presence in the metro cities first and then look forward to expand in tier II and III cities,” Dewan said, adding that the group will prefer to manage properties with other partners in these areas.
At present, the group has 10 properties in Calcutta, New Delhi, Bangalore, Navi Mumbai, Hyderabad, Kerala, Chennai and Visakhapatnam.