Stadium hotel plan may give way to offices

Plans to build a five-star, 200-bedroom hotel at the redeveloped Wembley Stadium may be dropped in favour of creating more offices, while the number of proposed restaurants has fallen from 13 to six.

The demolition team will start work on converting Wembley into the English National Stadium next month. This makes England's defeat on Saturday by Germany in the World Cup 2002 qualifier the last game to be played at the stadium. It is set to reopen after its £475m makeover in late 2003 or early 2004.

Hilton has been in talks to manage the proposed hotel for more than a year. According to Desmond Taljaard, senior vice-president at Hilton Real Estate: "We are still in negotiations with the English National Stadium Trust, and the ball is in their court. There have been detailed consultations about the management of a new hotel within the stadium complex, but we are also aware that there have been discussions relating to alternative office use for the site.

"We hope this matter will be concluded before spring 2001."

The company's nearby Hilton National Wembley hotel was renamed the Wembley Plaza this summer and is being refurbished to coincide with the opening of the new stadium, when the hotel is to be renamed again as a Hilton.

A spokesman for the stadium said the fate of the hotel would not need to be decided for another 18 months. However, he believed that if it was shelved, it would more likely be replaced by serviced apartments than offices.

Last summer the company was looking to boost the number of restaurants from two to 13, but this has since been scaled down to six, with a total of 1,750 seats. Four would be open to the public seven days a week.

The stadium spokesman said the complex would still expect to feed up to 10,000 people in restaurant-style conditions in a single afternoon.

The plans for the 90,000-seat stadium and complex also include providing banqueting and corporate hospitality for 5,000 diners, including a 2,000-seat banqueting hall, and boosting the number of food kiosks to 478 from the 152 in the old stadium.

by Angela Frewin angela.frewin@rbi.co.uk

Source: Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine, 12-18 October 2000