Trilogy - New tower will ease five-star room shortage

From the Sunday Mail today:

CONSTRUCTION will begin next month on Brisbane's latest luxury hotel as the city continues to face a critical accommodation shortage.

Trilogy, which will feature 192 five-star one and two-bedroom hotel apartments in a 70-storey tower, will be the first five-star hotel built in Brisbane for a decade. A report released by Deloitte last week found Brisbane had the fourth-highest hotel occupancy rate in the world at 84.3 per cent. "It's pretty powerful, compelling evidence of the need for more hotel rooms in Brisbane," said John Wilson of APH Capital Partners, backers of the $700 million development. "There's a tremendous demand for five-star rooms in the city." Trilogy will have a massive lantern incorporated into the design, which will light up the night sky over the CBD and make it one of the city's most recognisable buildings.

"It will be an incredible landmark," he said. "Our intent was to make it something that over time will be instantly recognisable. "There are buildings around the world that people recognise and associate with particular cities and this will become one of them."

At 265m, APH is also claiming it will be Brisbane's tallest building, although it could be overtaken by Vision, a 287m residential and commercial tower planned for the city.

Trilogy will be built on the site formerly occupied by the Red Cross building at 480 Queen St. Demolition has begun and construction will start in June. It should be completed about the middle of 2012. In addition to the hotel, it will feature 109 luxury residential apartments and 28 levels of offices. The cost of building traditional luxury hotels had been prohibitive, but Trilogy will be selling the hotel apartments as strata titles to individual investors and leased back to the hotel operator – to be named later this month.

Prices for the fully furnished rooms – with views over the Brisbane River, Story Bridge and the city – will range from $500,000 to $900,000.

The Deloitte annual Hotel Occupancy Global Ranking Index, which compares 165 cities outside North America, listed Perth at No. 1. Cairns, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide also joined Brisbane in the Top 20.