The outspoken hotel boss has said little since reports in mid-May that half-a-dozen of his hospitality ventures had collapsed into administration. The largest of these, Signature Living Hotels Ltd – the parent company of the group’s extended network of 60 hotels and residential developments – was found to owe £113m to its creditors.

Mr Kenwright owns a number of properties in Belfast, the most high profile of which is the proposed George Best themed hotel. He also owns the site of the former Crumlin Road courthouse in the north of the city, which is now on the market again.

In a detailed statement released today (July 3), Mr Kenright insists that despite the group’s financial difficulties, a number of its most popular venues were preparing to re-open, including the Shankly hotel and the Alma de Cuba bar in Liverpool.

Mr Kenwright confirmed that social distancing measures had been put in place at all properties and insisted that all events booked at Signature Living venues, including weddings, would take place as planned:

‘In relation to the company’s financial position generally, it is worth noting that the value of our overall ‘bricks and mortar’ assets significantly outweighed our liabilities pre-Covid,’ added the embattled hotelier. ‘While the property market may have changed in the last three months, we believe we will trade through the current challenges and in time, the asset values will return to their former levels.’

Mr Kenwright went on to point out that before the coronavirus lock down, Signature Living had been operating five hotels alongside the Alma de Cuba bar and restaurant. Within the next two months, he added, the group would be running eight hotels as well as Alma de Cuba.

The £15m George Best themed hotel in Belfast is the only one of Signature Living’s NI projects which has seen significant progress. Beset with difficulty, however, its proposed opening date was continually revised and Mr Kenwright’s fractious relationship with local planning officials became common knowledge in December 2018 when he penned a scathing open letter to Belfast City Council in which he described the situation as ‘a living nightmare’.

In June last year, some staff employed to work at the George Best hotel were offered redundancy packages and in September, Signature Living announced that it would scale back its NI operations.

When the hotel went into administration in April, joint administrators, Matthew Ingram and Michael Lennon of Duff & Phelps said that they recognised the value of the property as a finished development that would be able to trade:

‘In so far as is possible, advance bookings and reservations remain unaffected,’ they added. ‘We will be exploring all options with the current funders to maximise value and ultimately return to creditors.’

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According to adverts currently showing on the website of estate agency, Colliers International, the group is selling the iconic Crumlin Road courthouse site and the War Memorial Building in Waring Street, Belfast – both sites that had previously been earmarked for hotels by Signature Living.

The news comes just days after it was revealed that two of the group’s existing Liverpool hotels – The Shankley and 30 James Street – are now also on the market with a combined asking price of £51m.

The sale of both Belfast hotels will cast fresh doubt on the future of Signature Living’s much-anticipated George Best-themed hotel, which is currently under development at the Scottish Mutual Building in Belfast city centre. Considerable work has already been completed there, but Signature Living’s proprietor, Lawrence Kenwright has quarrelled publicly with Belfast City Council around planning issues at the £15m hotel and the opening date has been uncertain for some time. In June, employees at the hotel were offered a choice between relocation to properties in Liverpool and Cardiff or redundancy.

According to Signature Living, the George Best hotel is now subject to an ‘operational review’.

It’s now around a year since Mr Kenwright, outlined £20m plans for the redevelopment of the Crumlin Road courthouse in Belfast. The planned 77-bed Lanyon Hotel on the site was to have been partially open this year.

The War Memorial Building in Cathedral Quarter, which already has approval for a 64-bed hotel, was acquired by the group in 2017.

Signature Living has said that it is now selling both hotels because of issues that it has with the planning process in Belfast.

In a recent statement, Signature Living said that its future focus was on the delivery of new hotel developments across the UK and that it was selling hotels to fuel that expansion:

It added: ‘In Belfast, our issues with the city council are well known. Their archaic planning structures have delayed progress with the George Best hotel development in a way that we have never experienced with a local authority before.

‘We are still firmly committed to getting the George Best hotel open as soon as possible but, given the experience we have had with Belfast City Council, we do not feel that we can progress with the others. We are, therefore, actively exploring options to sell.’

Belfast City Council has said little in public about the disagreement but it did confirm in November last year that it had undertaken a live enforcement investigation into ‘unauthorised’ work at the George Best hotel site.

Our lead picture shows Lawrence Kenwright outside the Scottish Mutual Building in Belfast where his George Best-themed hotel is currently under construction.

The post Signature Living to sell iconic Belfast sites appeared first on Licensed & Catering News (LCN) - News Coverage from the Local Trade.

According to adverts currently showing on the website of estate agency, Colliers International, the group is selling the iconic Crumlin Road courthouse site and the War Memorial Building in Waring Street, Belfast – both sites that had previously been earmarked for hotels by Signature Living.

The news comes just days after it was revealed that two of the group’s existing Liverpool hotels – The Shankley and 30 James Street – are now also on the market with a combined asking price of £51m.

The sale of both Belfast hotels will cast fresh doubt on the future of Signature Living’s much-anticipated George Best-themed hotel, which is currently under development at the Scottish Mutual Building in Belfast city centre. Considerable work has already been completed there, but Signature Living’s proprietor, Lawrence Kenwright has quarrelled publicly with Belfast City Council around planning issues at the £15m hotel and the opening date has been uncertain for some time. In June, employees at the hotel were offered a choice between relocation to properties in Liverpool and Cardiff or redundancy.

According to Signature Living, the George Best hotel is now subject to an ‘operational review’.

It’s now around a year since Mr Kenwright, outlined £20m plans for the redevelopment of the Crumlin Road courthouse in Belfast. The planned 77-bed Lanyon Hotel on the site was to have been partially open this year.

The War Memorial Building in Cathedral Quarter, which already has approval for a 64-bed hotel, was acquired by the group in 2017.

Signature Living has said that it is now selling both hotels because of issues that it has with the planning process in Belfast.

In a recent statement, Signature Living said that its future focus was on the delivery of new hotel developments across the UK and that it was selling hotels to fuel that expansion:

It added: ‘In Belfast, our issues with the city council are well known. Their archaic planning structures have delayed progress with the George Best hotel development in a way that we have never experienced with a local authority before.

‘We are still firmly committed to getting the George Best hotel open as soon as possible but, given the experience we have had with Belfast City Council, we do not feel that we can progress with the others. We are, therefore, actively exploring options to sell.’

Belfast City Council has said little in public about the disagreement but it did confirm in November last year that it had undertaken a live enforcement investigation into ‘unauthorised’ work at the George Best hotel site.

Our lead picture shows Lawrence Kenwright outside the Scottish Mutual Building in Belfast where his George Best-themed hotel is currently under construction.

The post Signature Living to sell iconic Belfast sites appeared first on Licensed & Catering News (LCN) - News Coverage from the Local Trade.

Damian Gilvary was appointed in May last year as general manager of Lawrence Kenwright’s new George Best hotel in Belfast City Centre. It’s the current highpoint in a career that has seen Damian rise rapidly through the ranks from a housekeeping position at the Hilton hotel in Belfast:

‘I was 16 at the time and about to go on holiday,’ recalls Damian. ‘I wanted to make a few bob and my sister worked at the Hilton as part of the opening team. She got me a place cleaning rooms. I spent two-and-a-half years at that and I loved it.’

In conversation, Damian is full of enthusiasm for the trade and that’s reflected in the course his career has taken. From his place on the housekeeping team at the Hilton, he transferred to front-of-house duties and worked his way quickly from reception to guest relations manager and eventually to a role as assistant front of house manager, which had been his original goal. He was 18 at the time and within 18 months, he’d been promoted to manager.

‘I really thought I’d made it,’ jokes Damian.

It was at this point that Damian started winning broader recognition for his efforts, collecting Hilton’s internal front of house business development award. A couple of years after that, he won the Hilton customer service award for the UK and Ireland.

‘If you put the hard work in then it gets repaid, in my opinion,’ Damian told LCN recently. ‘At that time, hospitality had a bit of a name for long hours and low pay and to be honest, you really had to want to do it. I still say that to people today when we’re recruiting, if you want to succeed in this industry, then it’s important to have that enthusiasm for the job.’

A period in GB followed for Damian, working at the Hilton’s flagship Deansgate hotel in Greater Manchester. He was front of house manager there with a 41-strong team – three times the number he’d looked after in Belfast.

On his return to Belfast, he took a post at the Clayton on Ormeau Avenue, which was being refurbished at the time:

‘I’d never done this type of thing but I knew that I could and I really wanted the challenge,’ he says.

Then a Manchester contact set up a meeting between Damian and Lawrence Kenwright, owner of the Liverpool-based hotel group, Signature Living. That initial meeting went well and Damian was subsequently interviewed for the GM’s post at the firm’s new George Best-themed hotel in Belfast.

He was appointed to that position in the middle of last year and now has a team of 41 staff in place. That figure should rise to 100 in anticipation of the hotel’s opening, which is scheduled for early 2019.

The hotel, located at Donegall Square South, had been due to open in time for Christmas. A number of planning and liquor licensing issues caused the delay but Damian is confident that the new deadline will be met:

‘Everybody is talking about the George Best hotel now, there’s a real sense of anticipation and people can’t wait to see it open. In my time in Belfast, I’ve not seen that kind of excitement before,’ says Damian.

‘I would describe working for Signature Living as my dream job really, this is a contemporary hospitality style that’s not been seen in NI before and do far, we’re attracting and retaining a very high calibre team so I’m very excited to see this hotel open to the public…I wish I’d had the opportunity to do this a decade ago.’

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