Native Launches Flagship Aparthotel at Bear Gardens, London
Date: July 2018
Location: Empire Warehouse, South Bank, London, UK
Name: Native Bankside – opening August 2018
No. of Keys: 75
Seller: The building was originally owned by The Crown Estates in 2015 and following a Christie’s run tender process Native (as in was Go Native) were appointed with the developer, Create REIT to build and run.
Owner: Create REIT. The aparthotel will be in a converted 18th century tea warehouse on London’s historic Bear Garden.
Native Bankside will add to the brand’s portfolio of over 25 properties across the UK and will offer 75 studios, one and two bedroom apartments with 24-hour check-in and a communal workspace, exposed brick walls and original arched warehouse windows.
A further two new Native aparthotels will over the next six months, in Glasgow and Manchester.
The building is the first ever BREEAM excellent rated aparthotel in the UK offering a substantially reduced emission allocation to the increasing number of their corporate clients tracking their carbon emissions through the Carbon Disclosure Project.
The Native business analyst team undertook a full bench-marking and business modelling process to get under the skin of Empire Warehouse and the Bear Gardens location to understand how this unique building should be positioned in the aparthotel market.
They worked very closely with the architects, SPPARC, in the design phase to optimise the configuration, the number of units, provision of amenities and operational management space in order to maximise the building’s potential.
Close involvement in the FF&E layout throughout the design period has made use of our extensive knowledge of interior design and unit optimisation to provide a best-in-class customer centric destination.
THPT Comment: This new opening firmly secures Bankside as real hotel neighbourhood, with several new openings in recent years and one or two still to open. Guy Nixon was one of the early adopters when it came to the London/UK serviced apartment scene…Not sure why he dropped the “Go” in Go Native.