Hotel brand Zedwell has secured another UK site for its growing portfolio. Criterion Capital, the company behind the brand, has acquired the former Debenhams department store on Edinburgh’s Princes Street, which it will convert to make the brand’s fifth hotel.
The addition comes as Zedwell looks to strike out from its London base, adding hotels in key British regional cities. The group has a pipeline of 22 hotels, which should see it grow to a portfolio of more than 7,000 rooms, by 2026. In January 2024, it secured planning approval for a 187 room hotel in Manchester, which will be created by converting offices on the upper floors of Royal Buildings. With construction already under way, the hotel is expected to be ready to open in early 2026.
Edinburgh’s fundamental strengths
Kerr Young of JLL, who advised on the transaction, explained the attraction of the Scottish city: “Edinburgh remains the best performing hotel market in Europe. We are very excited to facilitate the entry of a new hotel concept such as Zedwell, which will support the adaptive reuse of a strategically important property located in the heart of the city centre.”
Zedwell has made a virtue of offering hotel rooms without windows, concentrating on delivering a calm, quiet room that ensures good sleep with a focus on wellbeing. Rooms do not have TVs, while sound deadening features are built into the interiors, which extensively use natural and recycled materials. With no requirement to have a window for every room, the layout can be much more flexible. This makes it much easier to adapt and reuse existing buildings with deep floorplates.
Zedwell calls its rooms cocoons, that it says are “carefully designed and crafted to give you the best possible sleep and rest”. As well as single and double rooms, the hotels also feature accommodation for groups of family and friends visiting the city together, with rooms sleeping 3,4,6 or 8, and Cocoon Party Room that can sleep up to 12.
Currently, Zedwell has three hotels open, all in central London. One, near Tottenham Court Road, was created from a former underground car park. A second, in Piccadilly Circus, sits on the upper floors of the Trocadero complex. And a third is located in the historic Greenwich district in the south east of the UK capital. Further London sites in Victoria, Knightsbridge and Park Lane are also in development.
A growing UK trend
Zedwell is not alone in developing hotel rooms without windows. The approach is permitted by UK planning authorities, and other budget or economy hotel brands also offer similar rooms, with some noting they have guests who prefer the peace and quiet guaranteed by the absence of exterior street noise.
Another recently approved London project will see the Premier Inn brand create an addition to its London hotel portfolio, by converting an underground car park to a hotel. The 207 room hotel under the Brunswick Centre will be created by investor Lazari Investments.
