Millennium & Copthorne pulls out of Central Village
MILLENNIUM & Copthorne Hotels has pulled out of Liverpool’s Central Village scheme where it was due to open two venues.
A spokesman for the London-based company told TheBusinessDesk the deal had “unravelled” at some point since it was first announced in 2009.
The scheme’s developer, Altrincham-based Merepark, said it now has “alternative tenants” for the site, but would not give any more detail.
Merepark struck a deal with Millennium & Copthorne to operate a 200-bed Millennium Hotel from the grade II-listed Watson building next to Lewis’ on Renshaw Street which was to have a large extension on the site of a Rapid paint shop.
The Copthorne, with another 200 beds, was to be around the corner in a new building on Newington, which runs between Renshaw Street and Bold Street. Merepark is now understood to be in the process of selling the Watson building although the identity of the buyer is not known.
It bought the Watson building and the neighbouring Rapid site in 2008 in a joint venture with the Irish developer Ballymore called Capital Regeneration Limited. In the same year it bought the Lewis’s building in a joint venture with previous owners Capital & Counties, a subsidiary of Liberty International.
A spokesman for Millennium said: “There was an agreement in place from 2009 to set up Copthorne and Millennium hotels, however some time after that this deal unravelled. We haven’t been involved for some time. It is certainly not on our books now.
“Millennium & Copthorne is not involved in Central Village Liverpool. I don’t know the detail about when that deal unravelled but it’s not recent.”
Work on the Lewis’s building stalled earlier in the year when Merepark’s construction arm went into liquidation. The building, which was being converted into 80,000 sq ft of offices and a 126-bed Adagio apart-hotel, was around 85% complete and the hotel had already opened for business. Merepark has since appointed Mansell, a subsidiary of Balfour Beatty, to complete the work.
The Central Village scheme also includes three renovated buildings on Bold Street and a Q-Park multi-storey car park off Renshaw Street that have been completed. The Millennium and Copthorne hotels were part of a second phase that also included the 75,000 sq ft leisure and retail Boardwalk building and 20,000 sq ft of retail space on three floors above Central Station.
Merepark agreed a £37.1m forward funding deal with the Regent Capital syndicate to pay for the redevelopment of Lewis’s and the Co-operative Bank put in 10-year debt financing. The Bank of Ireland was involved in funding other parts of the development.
