McCourt’s Gethar Ventures unveiled as firm behind £15m Liverpool hotel scheme

BIRMINGHAM-based property firm Gethar Ventures, which counts city-based entrepreneur Anthony McCourt as one of its directors, is to plough £15m into the conversion of a former department store in Liverpool into a new 105-bed hotel.

The company is set to take possession of the former George Henry Lee store on Church Street so the conversion work can begin. The bedrooms will be finished to a 4*-plus standard, with proposals for a restaurant on the top floor.

The department store, currently part of the Grosvenor Developments portfolio, is presently under contract for an undisclosed sum from Gethar. The sale is being handled by Mason Owen on behalf of Grosvenor Developments.

The project will be Gethar’s first in the North West. It currently has investments in two other hotel projects in its home city – one a very similar scheme involving the £16m conversion of the former HSBC building in Paradise Street into a 137-bedroom hotel, 53 serviced apartments and a possible new café/restaurant.

McCourt, who was also part of the concept team at Birmingham Development Company – the company behind The Cube development – said: “This is an iconic and much-loved building within the city centre and is ideally suited to transformation into a quality apart-hotel proposition. It is a superb location just minutes from the major train links, so should appeal especially to business travellers on stays of more than a couple of days.

“Liverpool is such a vibrant, exciting city and was a key-destination city for our business to develop and set up stall here. The project should help create 80 construction and end-use jobs, so is great news for the city.”

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