Australia’s Spotlight Holdings Group has signed a management agreement with Starwood Hotels & Resorts to develop a 176-room Aloft hotel in Melbourne’s South Yarra suburb, slated to open in 2019. The hotel will be part of a $120-million mixed-use project called 402 Chapel—reportedly the Spotlight group’s first such development.
In addition to the hotel, the 402 Chapel development will include retail shops, commercial offices, conference facilities and 40 residential apartments. Spotlight Group Holdings deputy chairman Zac Fried said the company had considered “more traditional” hotels for the Chapel Street site, but opted for Aloft as they liked the brand's "tech-forward DNA."
“The growth is very positive for us and this is our fourth signing with the Aloft brand in Australia,” Starwood’s director of acquisitions and development, Andrew Taylor, told The Australian. The development comes weeks after Starwood lost its management contracts for the Noosa Sheraton in Queensland and the Sheraton Four Points at Sydney’s Darling Harbour to the Hyatt Group.
Starwood has 17 operating hotels in the Pacific and a further 12 in the pipeline.