The new Premier Inn Hotel Bochum in the 21-storey City-Tower-BO will be exemplary for the mixed-use strategy of the British brand.

The British hotel brand Premier Inn announces another hotel location in Germany (see our last article) . A 192-room hotel of the premium economy brand is being built on nine of the 21 floors of the City-Tower-BO in the centre of Bochum. In addition to the Premier Inn Hotel, the high-rise building will also house offices, serviced flats, retail and gastronomy facilities. Completion of the property directly adjacent to the main railway station is planned by 2024. The subsequent lease agreement with Premier Inn runs for 25 years.

The public areas of the Premier Inn - lobby, restaurant, bar and a lounge - will be located on the first floor of the tower, which is over 60 metres high. Travellers will enter this entrance from the ground floor, where gastronomy and a city market will be located, via an outside staircase. Travellers, other tower users and Bochum residents will also be able to use a 430 square metre hotel terrace on the first floor. The 192 rooms will be located on the upper floors two to nine.

Michael Hartung, Managing Director of Premier Inn Investments, the German real estate division of the British Whitbread Group says:

For us, this project in Bochum is very special for several reasons. It will be our first hotel in the city, and it will also be in an excellent city location. And with the Premier Inn in Bochum, we are participating in a particularly innovative implementation of a mixed-use concept, in which a hotel development is planned in combination with other uses.

Chris-Norman Sauer, head of Acquisitions, is currently looking increasingly for mixed-use properties and quarters in addition to individual locations. He stated:

Here in the City-Tower-BO, the uses are not conceived as in most cases in several neighbouring buildings next to each other, but on different floors. But the principle is the same. Then you can locate Premier Inn, as in Bochum, in locations that would otherwise not be possible due to the limited space available.

Premier Inn is currently examining several such mixed uses. On the one hand, as in Bochum via lease agreements, but increasingly also via own real estate investments in the newly emerging hotels.

In March of this year Whitbread provided additional funding of one billion pounds for growth in Germany and the UK via a rights issue. This financial commitment is particularly important for Whitbread's Asset Heavy strategy as Premier Inn also becomes an investor and owner of the property. This is the case for about half of the hotels in Germany.

Another recent example of mixed use development (see our article) is the 7 storey building hosting a store with the new Ikea Concept and an Open House by JO&JOE in Vienna Austria.