Sino to add two more floors to hotel
Sino Group is taking advantage of the Government's decision to ease plot-ratio restrictions on hotel developments by increasing the number of rooms in its Sheung Wan hotel project.
Charles Lee, general manager of the group's hotel division, said that two floors would be added to the hotel.
Under the revised policy, areas designated for dropping off and picking up hotel users, and back-up facilities such as kitchens and workshops, are excluded from the 15 times plot ratio allowed for hotel developments.
Mr Lee said that this would allow the company to build a 29-storey hotel with 356 rooms since back-of-the-house facilities totalling about 11,500 square feet were excluded from plot-ratio calculations.
This would mean an 8 per cent increase in the number of rooms over the initial plan for a 329-room, 27-storey hotel tower, he said.
The hotel, with a gross floor area of 142,449 sq ft, is being built on the former 300-room Emerald Hotel site.
Before the Government's relaxation of hotel-development rules, the company had planned to build an office tower when the Emerald Hotel was demolished.
The recovery in the hotel sector and the new regulations on plot-ratio restrictions for hotel developments encouraged the company to revise its plans.
The hotel is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 1998.
Sino Group is owned by the family of Robert Ng Chee Siong.
The Government said that the new concessions were aimed at encouraging construction of additional hotels and stimulating tourism.
