Ziser London Acquires Fulham Town Hall for Hotel Conversion
Main Photo: Fulham Town Hall as is.
Date: February 2019
Location: Fulham, West London, UK, close to Chelsea and Fulham football grounds
Name: TBA
No. of Keys: TBA
Seller: Hammersmith & Fulham Council
Buyer: BBS Capital has arranged a loan with OakNorth, for private family office Ziser London, to acquire the landmark Fulham Town Hall. We think this is their first venture into hotels, but very expereinced in residential and commercial property.
BBS arranged finance for some other hotel projects – Staybridge Suites & Holiday Inn at Heathrow, a 394 key Travelodge in London’s City Road, a 198 key apart-hotel in Ibiza, as well as many commercial buildings.
Oaknorth loaned £21m on London’s L’Oscar Hotel, Z Hotels Trafalgar Square and the Bike & Boot 59 key boutique hotel in Scarborough, Yorkshire.
This will support its planned transformation into a hotel, restaurants, event space and a spa.
OakNorth has provided £10 million which will be used to fund the acquisition of the Grade II star listed 51,350 square foot building from a private vendor, after which Ziser London will undertake the planning and pre-letting process. A development finance facility will then be arranged in due course.
Located on London’s Fulham Road, Fulham Town Hall was built between 1888 and 1890 and extended between 1904 and 1905, for a cost of £30,000 at the time.
Joanne Barnett of BBS Capital, said: “Our excellent working relationship with OakNorth was key to closing this deal for our client. Arranging the finance had the potential to be challenging, because planning permission to transform Fulham Town Hall into a hotel has not yet been granted.
However, OakNorth understood the vision and opportunity enabling us to secure funding to support the purchase of the property for our client.”
Priya Harley, debt finance director at OakNorth, added: “Ziser London has an extensive track record in investing and developing London based residential and commercial properties, in particular ones with architectural significance or a unique heritage. Once completed, this site will be a landmark property in London, so we’re delighted to be assisting the team and look forward to working with them on additional projects in the future.”
In 2018 BBS Capital helped its clients finance £1.37 billion of property deals across multiple sectors, and transacted with 25 different lenders to arrange investment, development and short term finance. The Mayfair based firm operates in the UK and Western Europe.
THPT Comment: The grand exterior building has been hanging around since 2011, since when the local council has been debating whether it would be right as a hotel, and even now it still has to go through a planning application. In 2011, LSH (Lambert Smith Hampton) achieved a sale to Dory Ventures, makers of the Maclaren childrens’ buggy!
Dory proposed a ‘quintessentially British’ lifestyle emporium that will support the flagship Maclaren showroom to be accompanied by high quality, boutique shops that will showcase the smaller retailer, and will also feature Dory’s Laser Performance (sailing dinghies) and Albert Thurston brands, plus a restaurant. The upper floors to be extended and converted to provide 15 new residential units.
The US company then went bust!
First Seen: Boutique Hotel News
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