Development agreement for Corinthia hotel in London

The Crown Estate of the United Kingdom has formally entered into a development agreement for the refurbishment and sale of the Metropole building and 10 Whitehall Place in central London with a consortium comprising International Hotel Investments Plc (IHI) of Malta, Nakheel Hotels of Dubai and the Libyan Foreign Investment Company.

This followed the signature of a preliminary agreement earlier in the year.

Under the terms of the agreement, IHI and its consortium partners will immediately proceed to detailed planning and seeking consent for the refurbishment of the 40,000-square-metre property to provide a 283-bedroom five-star hotel, a spa and a number of luxury residential apartments.

The signature of the Development Agreement took place in London. Charles Gardner, head of the Office Portfolio, responsible for the properties, signed on behalf of The Crown Estate and IHI chairman Alfred Pisani, Nakheel Hotels CEO Joe Sita and Ibrahim Mabrouk, deputy chairman of LFICO, represented the consortium partners at the ceremony.

The sale of the property to the consortium was the result of an international tender issued by The Crown Estate in 2007, whereby bids were sought and adjudged on the basis of planning proposals for the redevelopment of the properties, as well as financial offers.

In awarding the bid to the consortium, The Crown Estate declared that it had received a number of very strong bids from all over the world but had selected the consortium's proposals as having the vision to meet the challenge of restoring this once grand hotel to its original use in a manner most sympathetic to the building's architectural features, townscape setting and history of the site.

The consortium has assembled a team of world-class consultants to support the planning, design and project management of the development.

Mr Pisani said IHI was proud to have achieved such an important milestone and to have entered into this relationship with The Crown Estate. "We will leave no stone unturned in transforming these adjoining properties into London's most exciting luxury hotel, to be managed under our Corinthia Hotels brand," he added.