Serviced flats clinched in city firm’s three-year deal

Jan 4 2008 by Alex Turner, Liverpool Daily Post

A PROPERTY development company has secured leases to operate 24 serviced apartments above the Malmaison Hotel at Princes Dock.

Merchant Living, based in Mossley Hill, will today complete on deals for half of the flats on the top floors of the Malmaison building.

The leases will run for three years and Merchant Living expects to be welcoming travellers in a month’s time.

Managing director Jim Beal, who is also chairman of The Mersey Partnership’s serviced apartments group, said: “The apartments have been bought off-plan by several groups and each of these groups have asked us to run the service apartments.

“Visitors want to be in the city centre and we will be there from February.”

The flats are on the top four floors of the building, with the hotel operating from the first six floors.

Their foray into the city centre is likely to be a precursor to further deals, both at the Princes Dock site and at several other locations across the city, as Merchant Living looks to have a portfolio of 200 apartments by the end of 2008.

The company operates serviced apartments as an alternative to hotels for corporate travellers who are staying in the city for three nights and longer. Although the apartments at Princes Dock are only expected to be four-star, Merchant Living claims the only five-star accommodation in the city at its Mossley Hill apartments.

But it is the large number of empty city centre flats that offer a real opportunity for growth for the company, according to Mr Beal.

“When the city grows, by 20,000-30,000 people, they will live there,” he said.

“But the next two or three years will be very bad.

“Service apartments will swallow them up until investors can sell them.

“In the meantime, we are building up a business.”

The company is also benefiting from the lack of hotel rooms in the city, particularly with the BT Convention Centre offering a permanent increase in the number of business travellers.

Mr Beal added: “In Liverpool, everywhere gets full.

“It will be an even bigger problem this year because there are not enough hotels built already.

“The expansion of Liverpool will bring an expansion of corporate business and will bring more corporate visitors.”

alexturner