Dublin-based property developer Harcourt Developments has snapped up Manchester’s Princess on Portland hotel off a guide price of £8.5m.
The Grade II-listed city centre hotel dates back to 1870 and was converted from a listed Victorian cotton mill. It has benefited from a £1.2m investment – including a new business centre that opened in September 2006 – but retains a number of period elements such as Gothic features, Lombard friezes and cornices.
It occupies a prime trading position at the intersection of two busy routes (Princess and Portland Streets) between Piccadilly Station and the city’s prime business and cultural quarters. The hotel is also on the fringe of a lively Chinese district and the fast-growing ‘village’ beside the nearby canal.
The 85 en-suite bedrooms are distributed across two basements, five storeys and an added attic.
Other facilities include a 50-seat lounge-bar; a 60-seat brasserie with its own entrance from the street; and the new business centre, also with its own street entrance, with eight state-of-the-art meeting and training rooms designed to hold between 12 and 36 delegates theatre-style.
The Manchester office of Colliers Robert Barry sold the freehold on behalf of James and Catherine Alexander and Tim Rumney, who have retained their award-winning Castle Green hotel at Kendal.
Harcourt has an extensive hotel portfolio, including Solis Lough Eske Castle, the first five-star hotel in Donegal, Ireland. Its leisure developments include the award-winning Carlisle Bay in Antigua, the sister hotel to London’s One Aldwych.
By Angela Frewin