Exciting plans for Millennium Hotel at Ocean Village Marina

A revised design for the Millennium Hotel at Ocean Village Marina has been submitted to Southampton City Council for their consideration in order to improve the events attraction and iconic glazed nature of the hotel. In 2006 permission was granted for a hotel on the promontory, surrounded by water on three sides, and accompanied by an Events Piazza overlooking the marina. This was part of a masterplan to attract new events to Ocean Village.

Over the past two years Marina Developments Limited has been working hard with its consultants to optimise the design for the constrained site and to provide a key events attraction whilst maintaining the original cost budget. These aims have led to the design being modified to improve the linkages between the conferencing facilities and the Events Piazza.

The design has been altered to increase the glazing to the public floors at the base of the hotel and to make the guestrooms float above these. At the same time the guestroom block has been moved towards the land to make the end of the promontory more of a destination and to provide a greater area for external seating and dining. In addition the interactivity of the hotel with the proposed Events Piazza has been improved to bring the conferencing facilities onto the ground level and allow these areas to spill out into the Events Piazza.

Gavin Hall of Savills’ Planning Team, who has prepared the planning application, stated that “Taking on board comments from the previous application, we have worked closely with HKR Architects to ensure that the scheme takes account of previous consultation to optimise the solution for residents, local businesses, Councillors, berth holders and the yachting fraternity, the hotel operators - Millennium & Copthorne, and last but not least, events organisers, in order to really bring the heart back to Ocean Village”.

David Curtis-Brignell of Millennium & Copthorne Hotels says that “This proposal will really help to enliven Ocean Village Marina and Millennium & Copthorne are pleased to be part of these exciting plans. The site will become a key business and leisure destination and the link from the ballroom to the events area will assist to attract major events into Southampton.”

A further change has been the opening up of all guestroom corridors with glazing at either end to view out towards the marina to the east and to be able to view the cruise ships moored up to the west. This introduces natural light into the corridors and this has been a principle followed throughout the site. Accompanied with the use of sea water cooling to replace air conditioning, the Millennium Hotel, Ocean Village will be a pinnacle in the city’s sustainable credentials.

It is hoped that with a smooth run through planning, hotel construction could commence this year in order for the hotel to be operational during 2010.

Alan Chater of Marina Developments Limited commented that “We are committed to building a high quality hotel on this key site in Ocean Village. The quality we expect is borne out by the quality of our first project as part of the Ocean Village masterplan, namely the Ocean Car Park, which has been awarded “Best New Car Park 2008” and is shortlisted for a RIBA Design Award. The hotel will become equally iconic to the cityscape in the next couple of years.”