JS Wright secures £400,000 city hotel contract

BIRMINGHAM-based building services provider JS Wright has won a £400,000 mechanical contract at a new hotel in the city’s Jewellery Quarter.

The Aston company is to design and install energy-saving heating and ventilation systems for the new Bloc Hotel being built JR Pickstock and Elements Europe, part of the Oswestry-based Pickstock Group.

The 73-bed, four-storey hotel is being constructed on the site of the former Ashfield Motors garage in Caroline Street and is scheduled to open early next year.

JS Wright will be designing and fitting variable refrigerant volume air conditioning, including rooftop plant hidden from view by screens, and plumbing all the bedrooms on a pod-by-pod basis before being assembled, enabling work on site to be completed in just weeks.

The firm will also be fitting the gas pipe work, hot and cold water services, and drainage and sanitary installations as part of the sixth-month project.

Marcus Aniol, JS Wright Managing Director, said: “We are delighted to have been awarded this prestigious contract for such an exciting new hotel concept that is likely to become a blueprint for sustainable development.”

The hotel’s rooms will be prefabricated off site to reduce time, noise and disruption levels and the exterior walls will make use of a new style of long-lasting, weather-resistant clay brickwork, claimed to be a first in the UK hotel industry.

It uses a mix of clays manufactured to produce a vintage look that has been specified to be in keeping with the hotel’s historic surroundings.

The property’s window reveals will also have metalwork flashing with a gold finish in homage to the centuries of jewellery making in the conservation area.