Travelodge to check into Intu Lakeside
A 74-bedroom Travelodge hotel is to be developed at the Intu Lakeside shopping centre in Grays, Essex.
Located overlooking Alexandra Lake, the five-storey property will be operated by Travelodge under a 25-year lease agreement with the centre and will create 20 jobs. It is expected that the 7,850 sq ft ground-floor space will be let separately to a family-friendly restaurant group.
Neil Short, development manager of Travelodge, said the company is "delighted" to be opening a hotel at what is one of Europe's biggest shopping centres.
"With all of Intu Lakeside's fantastic retail, leisure and restaurant facilities on the hotel's doorstep, this will be a superb place for our business and leisure customers to stay and will enable us to offer the best value accommodation in the area."
Intu Lakeside, which has a 25 million annual footfall, includes retail giants Debenhams, Marks & Spencer and House of Fraser, alongside newly signed Hamleys and Kurt Geiger.
As well as the new hotel, plans are also in progress for the construction of a new £100m leisure quarter which will see the arrival of numerous restaurants, which is part of a wider £1.3b development over 10 years by Intu, the UK's largest owner and manager of regional shopping centres.
The UK's portfolio of 510 Travelodge hotels will be boosted by a further 15 hotels currently under construction. The company is also looking to develop a further 150 properties across the country.
