London Evening Standard:
"The huge Trocadero building on Piccadilly Circus is to be turned into the West End’s biggest budget hotel.
Work has already begun on the 583 room three star hotel, which will open in 2017 and where a night’s stay is likely to cost around £100 to £150.
It replaces an earlier plan for a much cheaper Tokyo style capsule hotel on the huge wedge shaped site between Shaftesbury Avenue and Coventry Street.
Thomas Dubaere, UK managing director of French hotel operator Accor, said: ”To have an affordable hotel of this size at the most prime location of the most visited city in the world next to one of the most often taken photographs in the world is unique.
“It is so close to the theatres, to Soho, everything is in easy walking distance. You will be able to come out of your room and everything is just five minutes away.”
The hotel will serve breakfast, which is included in the room rate, and have a bar but no full service restaurant. About 80 per cent of its guests are expected to be tourists.
The announcement will end years of uncertainty about the future of the Edwardian Grade II listed building, which served as a Lyons Corner House tea room and restaurant until the mid-Sixties. In the Eighties it was turned into an indoor theme park with rides, cinemas and shops but closed in February this year.
The company said the design of the hotel, which will be called Ibis Styles Piccadilly Circus, is likely to reflect the history of the area “with a hint of humour perfectly matching the electric eccentricity of the Trocadero.”"
