Mystery surrounds a £50million hotel and condo development which is supposed to be ready in time for Plymouth’s Mayflower 400 celebrations in 2020.
With the start of the year-long commemoration of the voyage to America only months away, work has yet to begin on the site of the double block on a prominent position on Plymouth’s world famous Hoe.
The stasis comes more than a year after developers said construction would commence in 2018 and the buildings would be out of the ground, with the hotel even being open and trading, before the close of 2020.
But the site is still a level piece of ground and Henley Real Estate, the firm behind the plans for the 11-story hotel and a 15-floor apartment block, has gone quiet and not responded to emails and phone inquiries from Business Live.
Sources in the Plymouth hospitality industry are even saying a major hotel chain is circling and wants to snaffle the land and build its own hotel.
Meanwhile, apartments in 1620 The Residencies, as the block of flats is being called, are already advertised for sale, with a two-bed apartment available off-plan at £467,500.
Henley Real Estate said in May 2018 it would name a contractor and get cracking that year, saying that though the timescale was challenging it was confident it would hit it.
But the firm was then mired in a planning wrangle which delayed the start of building work, and even though this was sorted out in May 2019, when Henley Real Estate won a planning appeal, nothing has happened on site since.
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Plymouth City Council, which picked Henley Real Estate to develop the site in 2016, could only say: “The council has a contractual agreement with a developer, the terms of which are commercially sensitive. However, we are working with the developer to help unlock the development of the site.”
In May 2018 Chris Henley, director of Henley Real Estate, said plans and preparations are going well and some of the flats in the 88-apartment block had already been reserved off-plan.
He said the firm was looking forward to “rocking and rolling” and was aiming for the buildings to be built in time for the Mayflower 400 celebrations, as early in 2020 as possible.
Mr Henley said Henley Real Estate – a company run by Mr Henley and his father John – was in talks with four contractors and would announce which will construct the buildings.
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He said the two buildings would be built almost simultaneously, but work would start on the 80-bed boutique luxury hotel first. The apartment block, called 1620 The Residences and containing 88 “ocean fronting” flats, would be only about “a month or two” behind.
The idea was to have the hotel ready for the 2020 summer season and by that stage the apartments would look finished but may have internal work being carried out.
Meanwhile, some of the flats inside the apartment block went on sale off plan, and some of the first 10 flats were even snapped up, according to Mr Henley.
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Plans for the buildings were approved by Plymouth City Council in mid-2017. The hotel, on the two-acre site on Cliff Road, had approval for two restaurants, conferencing facilities, a ballroom and luxury spa.
Residents of the apartments are intended to have full access to the hotel facilities. Mr Henley said his company would retain and operate the hotel once built.
The firm is experienced in running hotels elsewhere, and has pointed to a £390million portfolio and hotels such as the 48-bed Crabwall Manor Hotel and Spa in Chester as examples of previous success.
But a planning glitch appeared in late 2018 with the company eventually winning a planning appeal about maintenance of the steel cladding.
A planning inspector removed a condition that the twin blocks had to be kept in “good clean condition and appearance” for their lifetime.
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Business Live's South West Business Reporter is William Telford. William has more than a decade's experience reporting on the business scene in Plymouth and the South West. He is based in Plymouth but covers the entire region.
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Inspector Sandra Whitehead ruled a 30-year guarantee on the cladding was good enough to safeguard the appearance of the buildings.
The condition was put in place by the council to protect the long-term look of the blocks, with them being on a prominent site overlooking the Hoe and Plymouth Sound.
Henley Real Estate Developments Ltd submitted an appeal in November 2018 to have the condition removed, saying it was unjustified, unnecessary and would add unreasonable costs. The inspector has found in favour of the developer.
The new development is planned for a site previously containing a Quality Hotel. But this closed in 2014 and was demolished two years later after the site was bought by the city council following vandalism and fires.
The original 10-storey concrete block was built in 1970 in the 350th anniversary year of The Mayflower ship setting sail from Plymouth for North America.
A major series of events is planned to mark the 400th anniversary in Plymouth during 2020.