Liverpool icons The Shankly Hotel & 30 James Street to be sold for £57m
Signature Living, the boutique hotel developer and operator founded by Lawrence and Katie Kenwright has confirmed it is to sell two of its luxury hotels in Liverpool for a reported £57m. The announcement comes at a time when Liverpool’s tourism economy is booming with the region voted in the UK’s Top 5 tourist destinations.
The sale of the two hotels – 30 James Street valued at £17m and The Shankly Hotel valued at £40m respectively – will allow Signature Living to invest further into its £150m hotel expansion plans and will also see the company’s 1400 strong staff increase to 3000 over the next 18 months.
The expansion plan for a further 10 hotels includes 6 hotel openings across the UK by the end of this year.
Signature Living also recently acquired the 80,000 square foot Cavern Walks shopping complex – which houses the world famous Cavern Club – in a deal worth £8m. This project will be transformed and developed around a theme of Liverpool’s music and cultural heritage.
Commenting on the sale of the two hotels Chairman Lawrence Kenwright said:
“We now operate 30 James Street as a highly successful award winning boutique hotel that regularly achieves 99.4% occupancy making it one of the most successful hotels in Liverpool. We are extremely proud of what we have achieved and I feel that our work is complete now on 30 James Street.”
“The Shankly Hotel is more than just a hotel, it’s an icon in Liverpool’s football heritage and widely regarded as Bill Shankly’s spiritual home. The Shankly has been an amazing success story for us.”
Currently the Signature Living group operates a hotel and apartment portfolio valued at over £350m.
Liverpool’s tourism value is worth £4.7 billion to the local economy with over 64 million people visiting the region. In 2017 Liverpool was also ranked the 5th most visited city in the UK and the 7th in England for domestic visitors. The overall value of foreign tourism to Liverpool rose from £254m to £358m over 2017.
