UK’s Largest Aparthotel Launched By Native

Aparthotel operator Native has made its Manchester debut with the opening of Ducie Street Warehouse – the largest aparthotel in the UK. The development brings the company’s aparthotel and build-to-rent asset portfolio to a value of £1.7bn.

The Grade II listed property was built in 1867 and comprises 158 luxury studio, one bed and two bed apart-hotel suites as well as eight penthouses with spectacular views across the city. It is set in one of the city’s best known former industrial buildings and is a short distance from Manchester Piccadilly on the edge of the Northern Quarter.

Native acquired the property with Ares Management, one of the largest global alternative asset managers, and sourced operators Bistroteque, an iconic East London restauranteur, and BLOK, an award-winning East London boutique fitness group, to create a unique and exciting ground floor destination for Manchester.

In addition to the apartments, the ground floor holds an all-day lounge, mini-cinema, coffee shop, restaurant, private meeting and dining rooms and outdoor terraces, all operated by Bistrotheque and three boutique class based fitness studios operated by BLOK.

Guy Nixon, Founder & CEO of Native, said: “Ducie Street Warehouse is a new breed of lifestyle focused UK aparthotel. We wanted it to be a location that attracts Manchester’s residents and workers alike as well as overnight guests. To do so, we recognised the need to bring on board outstanding operators that had the ability to activate 20,000 sq. ft. of ground floor space.”

The individual aparthotel suites all feature amenities such as sitting rooms, dining areas and fully fitted kitchens to give guests the independence and space that comes with an apartment living, while furnishings sourced by Conran and curated by Archer Humphryes give each room the comfort of a hotel room with the space of a home.

Native worked with Archer Humphryes Architects, who were also responsible for the world famous Chiltern Firehouse, Standard and Great Northern Hotels, to fully refurbish the Victorian Cotton Warehouse. The architect’s innovative design incorporated several of the original features of the warehouse including vaulted brick ceilings and towering iron columns.

Manchester’s tourism sector is worth £7.9bn and the city hosts 119 million visitors annually, with 11 million staying overnight.

Savills has reported that in 2018 the key feature of the UK hotel market was its resilience against Brexit.  This has been reflected in operational performance for serviced apartments with UK RevPAR growth of 2.2% for the first seven months of 2019, outperforming that for hotels.  Transaction activity for the wider sector, including hotels, has also remained strong with volumes up 46% to total £8.1bn in 2018 with 2019 YTD remaining largely in line with the same period last year.

The agency predicts that this will continue, with investor appetite for serviced apartment assets growing.  This will be helped in part by the fact that there is still significant room for stock growth as serviced apartments still only account for 3.5% of total hospitality accommodation in the UK, lagging more mature markets in the US and Asia Pacific.