LIVERPOOL ICONS THE SHANKLY HOTEL & 30 JAMES STREET "HOME OF THE TITANIC" TO BE SOLD FOR £57M! 

SIGNATURE LIVING GROUP EXPANDS WITH £150M DEVELOPMENT PLAN

Signature Living the boutique hotel developer and operator founded by Lawrence and Katie Kenwright has today (Friday 3rd May 2019) confirmed it is to sell two of its luxury hotels; 30 James Street and The Shankly Hotel 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 which 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 a further 6 hotel openings across the UK by the end of this year including Loyolla Hall (St Helens), The Dixie Dean Hotel (Liverpool), The Shankly Hotel (Preston), Cavern Walks Hotel (Liverpool) The George Best (Belfast )and The Wareing Hotel (Belfast). The company also recently announced its plans to convert a former Presidential yacht into a £5M 632 berth floating beach club cruise ship to be moored in Ibiza. 

Signature Living last week confirmed that it had also bought out all of its overseas investors in 30 James Street from an initial 5 year investment plan for £7.9M. The ROI of 8% plus a 3% uplift, yielding returns of 11% per annum on their original investment. 

Both 30 James Street and The Shankly are firm favourites with celebrities and sports stars including Hollywood actors Tom Hardy, Stephen Graham, Jurgen Klopp, Kenny Dalglish, Paris Hilton, The Spice Girls, Girls Aloud, Jamie Carragher, boxer Tony Bellew MMA star Conor McGregor and soap stars from Emmerdale, Coronation Street and Hollyoaks.

The multiple award winning Shankly Hotel is synonymous with football fans as the spiritual home of the legendary Liverpool football manager Bill Shankly OBE. The 125 bedroom hotel - which boasts the Bastion restaurant two indoor conference spaces - also includes the spectacular open air rooftop event space with panoramic views over the Liverpool skyline. The Shankly enjoys a record 98% occupancy making it the most successful hotel in Liverpool. The Shankly is a huge hit with families, football fans, hen and stag parties and is renowned for its luxurious accommodation, flamboyant rooms and its Liverpool football heritage with its memorabilia dedicated to the greatest football manager of all time Bill Shankly OBE. 

The Shankly Hotel’s themed suites are the amongst the most talked about and Instagrammable hotel rooms in the UK. The Flamingo suite includes a 10 berth roman bath, swinging egg chairs and flamingos on the ceiling, while the Jungle Room takes its inspiration from the cult TV show “Im A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here”. The Garden of Eden suites features 2500 flowers designed by one of Europe’s botanical artists Joseph Massie with wallpaper designed by the French fashion designer Christian LaCroix.

The award winning 30 James Street - voted Best Hotel In The UK 2018 at The Travel Republic awards - was originally built in 1898 as the former headquarters to the White Star Line shipping company which built and owned the Titanic. Today it is Liverpool’s top luxury hotel which has recreated the cinematic opulence and splendour of the Titanic with 63 uniquely themed rooms with breathtaking views over the River Mersey, the Albert Dock and the Three Graces. The Grade II listed building was designed by the renowned architects Richard Norman Shaw and J. Francis Doyle in 1896. It is the only building in the world that can be officially called the home of the Titanic after the decision to build both the Titanic and Olympic was made in this very building and where both vessels were registered.

The former offices of the White Star line had been derelict for twenty years. Signature Living developers Lawrence and Katie Kenwright took on the site five years ago and breathed new life into the building restoring the Grade II listed building to its former glory and making it Liverpool’s most successful hotel regularly achieving 99.4% occupancy.

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 exciting project will be transformed and developed around a theme of Liverpools music and cultural heritage. It will include plans to relocate the groups head office and 300 staff, new designer shops, along with artisan restaurants and bars. Signature Livings co working space “Signature Works” will also move into the Cavern Walks along with plans to develop a new hotel which will be the biggest in Liverpool catering for 1000 guests across the main hotel and party accommodation with a live stage in set in the middle of the hotel. 

Commenting on the sale of the two hotels Chairman Lawrence Kenwright said; 

“The sale of 30 James Street and The Shankly Hotel represent a significant milestone in the success of Signature Living for myself and Katie. As hotel developers and operators we took on 30 James Street 5 years ago as a derelict building. We took a tired and vacant building that had been left to slowly decay and which nobody wanted to touch because of the sheer scale of the project. We bought the building back to life and recreated a luxury hotel that would be truly fitting of the style and grandeur of the Titanic liner that people the world over could come and stay in and be immersed into the history. This building and what we have achieved will be a legacy for many years to come.

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.” 

Currently the Signature Living group operates a hotel and apartment portfolio valued at over £350M. Signature Living which operates the Shankly Hotel, 30 James Street, The Arthouse Hotel, Signature Hotel, The Exchange Hotel and Signature Living Apartments in its portfolio, is one of the most successful hotel and leisure apartment operators in Liverpool. 

Whilst 95% of hotels that are owned are not operated by their owners, Signature Living has re written the rule book as an owner/hotel operator. It has consistently outperformed all of the major branded hotel operators in the city of Liverpool with an occupancy level of 99.4%. 

Kenwright added; 

“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 with domestic tourism, overseas visitors, football fans and those celebrating weddings, stag and hen parties to christenings and baby showers. Our rooftop venue which has a 1000 capacity has also been host to some amazing live music performances from bands such as the Farm and The Christians. It’s now time to focus our attention on the next exciting phase of Signature Living with some incredibly exciting projects that we have in the pipeline including three football themed hotels in Liverpool with the Dixie Dean hotel in homage to the Everton and England legend Dixie Dean, The Shankly Hotel in Preston and the George Best Hotel in Belfast.”

Liverpool’s tourism value is worth a staggering £4.7 billion to the local economy with over 64.16 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. In 2017 Liverpool had in the region of 8,773 bedrooms across 69 hotel operators in Liverpool City centre and this is set to expand beyond 11,000 rooms across the city region to keep up with demand. The overall value of foreign tourism to Liverpool rose from £254M to £358M over 2017.