Five-metre wide hotel planned for Sydney's Surry Hills
A super-skinny hotel just five metres wide and only 12 rooms in total has been proposed for Sydney’s Surry Hills.
If approved by the City of Sydney council, the hotel at 109 Foveaux Street, less than 400m from Central Station, would be the first of a series of micro-hotels by architecture firm A Plus Design Group on smaller sites around the city.
Chief executive of A Plus Design Group Tony Leung said there was a gap in Sydney’s hotel market that didn’t offer the same “cookie-cutter” experience.
“Our idea is to connect with the fine dining restaurants in the area and service providers for things like laundry so our hotel can really focus on delivering rooms,” he said.
“Our hotel is about the experience of the traveller and that experience is cultivating a sense of place within urban Sydney.
The seven storey hotel will have a double height lobby and a rooftop garden. Photo: A Plus Design Group
“I don’t see why the hotel model should always be the same thing, where every single service offered is the same thing around the world. I think, why can’t we be innovative with it? I want to take the leadership in doing that, and if I really make a mistake well it’s only 12 rooms to lose.”
A Plus would be the owner, operator, developer and architect of the hotel.
The seven-storey building in Surry Hills, on a 97-square-metre block, would have a double-height lobby on the ground floor, five levels of accommodation and a rooftop terrace with a garden, according to the recently lodged development application.
Mr Leung said he was inspired by hotels in Hong Kong “where they do incredible things with such small spaces”.
Its facade was intended to be an “architectural artwork” of timber and steel.
The project cost has been estimated at $3 million which would include demolishing the existing two-storey commercial building on the site, which Leung had initially bought to use as the firm’s office.
The hotel design, from A Plus Design Group.
The building, at 109 Foveaux Street, has B4 mixed zoning which specifies that the maximum height for the building should not exceed 15 metres.
A Plus has applied to council to be able to build the full seven storeys – approximately 23.3 metres – and to bring it into line with the adjacent building at 111 Foveaux Street.
The building is currently available for lease while the plans are before council.
An earlier plan from A Plus involved building a mixed use retail and residential complex combined with the site next door at 103-107 Foveaux Street.
