Exclusive: What Coventry's new 1950s hotel will look like inside

The old Coventry Evening Telegraph building has now been stripped out and is ready to be transformed into the city's new boutique hotel.

The building will be re-modelled on the inside to construct a combination of bedrooms, a ground floor restaurant and bar, conference facilities, meeting rooms, penthouse suites and a rooftop bar.

Work on all of this is set to begin in January.

CoventryLive took a look around before the real construction work started.

The original features - such as the reception desk on the ground floor - are being protected to keep them from being damaged while demolition took place.

Inside the stripped out former CET building

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Most of the demolition and knocking down of walls has been done, which just leaves a clean-up operation before the transformation begins.

CoventryLive has also been given an exclusive look at what some of the 88 bedrooms could look like.

UK-based Bespoke Hotels will operate the hotel.

It is an independent operator founded in 2000 and manages more than 200 hotels in 21 countries - from Australia to America.

With more than 8,000 employees and assets totalling £815million it manages 96 hotels in the UK alone.

They include the Bermondsey Square Hotel in the heart of London’s creative district, the art deco-themed Hotel Gotham in Manchester and the Billesley Manor Hotel in Stratford.

First boutique hotel

Cllr Jim O’Boyle, cabinet member for jobs and regeneration at Coventry City Council, said: “The former Telegraph office offers great potential as our city’s first boutique hotel.

"From the first moment I walked in the place some 18 months ago, I could see the potential.

"I suggested using some of the original features down to including the big Coventry Telegraph sign in and on the building.

"Its location is perfect, the entrance area is very impressive and it provides a great opportunity.

"It will be a really welcome addition, particularly as we head towards being UK City of Culture.

“The vision for it is really impressive and I’m looking forward to work getting underway soon.”

CGI of what the bedrooms in the 88-bedroom hotel could look like in the former CET building

Celebrating Coventry's architecture

The 1950s-themed hotel will celebrate Coventry’s acclaimed mid-century architecture at the former Telegraph building in Corporation Street.

The city’s daily newspaper was based at the Corporation Street building from the 1950s until 2012 when it relocated to its current offices in the Canal Basin, in the city centre.

The paper, which is published six days a week, and the CoventryLive website, are still based there, in Thomas Yeoman House.

Original features

Many original features of the Corporation Street building, including the panelled board room and Lord Iliffe’s apartment, will be retained as a reminder of the building’s former life.

Local firm Coventry Demolition Company, based in Ryton-on-Dunsmore, has been stripping out the modern computer floors and suspended ceilings to reveal the original building and has carefully retained the 1950s features that will be a core part of the hotel design.

The works also include the removal of asbestos to make the site safe for the future.

Brian Harrabin, a director of CDP, has previously said the company had decided to start work ahead of securing all of the funding and council legal agreements for the project, so as not to miss the 2021 deadline.

He said: “These projects are very complicated and take a lot of time to put together, but we have bitten the bullet to start the work at risk to make sure it is open in time for 2021. City of Culture is a deadline that can’t be missed.

“The stripping out contract is removing the later additions and it is fascinating to see the original building appear again.

“We want it to be a treat to visit and totally different to anything else in the market place.

“We want it to be instantly recognisable as still the same place – we have been overwhelmed by people’s fond memories.

"The hotel will give visitors from the UK and across the world an exceptional Coventry experience.”

The interior of the new hotel will be based on Coventry’s world-renowned mid-century architecture with a great deal of care and thought going into the design.

Many of its original features and artefacts will be preserved including the original public area at the front of the building that will become the café/bar in the new hotel.

It is expected around 130 jobs will be created when the hotel opens.

An iconic building

Chairman of Bespoke Hotels, Robin Sheppard, who founded the business with Haydn Fentum, said: “This is an iconic building charged with much recent history of the city of Coventry with a really strong tone of voice from which we hope to deliver a rich narrative with nods to the 1950s heyday of the building and a cool contemporary twist.

“This will be a destination hotel with tons of character and a cheeky smile.”

More hotel developments

More developments for hotels have been on the cards across the city due to City of Culture bid win and Commonwealth Games.

One hotel will be housed at Belgrade Plaza in Coventry city centre, and the other one will be the planned 150-bed hotel on car park C as part of the Ricoh Arena.

Belgrade Plaza hotel

The development on a derelict plot of land next to the ring road has been billed as the second phase of the Belgrade Plaza scheme off Upper Well Street.

The three new blocks will be built on a corner plot next to the Premier Inn and the multi-storey car park.

Construction has started on a mixed-use development comprising of a 15-storey residential building, a 14-storey student residential building and a nine-storey hotel building.

The residential block will comprise 100 rooms, the student block will have 385 bedrooms while the hotel will have 80 bedrooms.

The plans shows residents and students will have separate communal areas.

Ricoh Hotel

The new hotel is set to be built on one of the car parks at the Ricoh Arena.

Wasps Holdings Limited (WHL) have approached the council to request the grant of a new long lease over Car Park C (opposite the retail park).

It will be to develop a new hotel which will support events and conferencing at the Ricoh Arena and across the city.

The city council's cabinet recommended to approve the new long lease for the car park to facilitate the development at a meeting in July.

Plans for new 150-bedroom hotel at Ricoh Arena

Why Coventry needs more hotels

Research has revealed Coventry needs at least 250 new hotel beds after lands the UK City of Culture title for 2021.

Coventry has an acute shortage of hotel rooms and will be unable to cope with the expected visitor influx to the city.

That’s the conclusion of industry experts projecting the economic impact of winning the bid, having looked at the growth in 2017 UK City of Culture Hull and Liverpool when it was European Capital of Culture.

Coventry needs to build new hotels to meet the demand of the additional visitors as current average occupancy is already high, due to business use in the region.