£50million Tamburlaine hotel sold to become the Clayton
The prestigious Tamburlaine Hotel, which cost £50m and took 18 months to build before opening in 2017, has been sold to the Dalata Hotel Group.
Located in the heart of the Station area hub, the four-star hotel has 155 bedrooms, a restaurant, bar, plus extensive conference and meeting facilities.
It was created by Ireland-based O’Callaghan Hotels, who bought the land and made the project into its first hotel in the UK.
The new owners took over on Friday (November 15) and will operate the Station Road hotel under a new FRI (full repairing and insuring) lease for a 30-year term with index linked five-year rent reviews. The landlord is Brentford-based real estate developer The Ability Group, which has acquired the property.
Dermot Crowley, deputy CEO of business development and finance, said: “Cambridge has been a priority target city for our Clayton brand, and I am delighted that we have secured such a high-quality, modern hotel in the centre of the city.
“The acquisition of the leasehold interest of this hotel is another important step in our stated strategy of expanding our Maldron and Clayton brands in key cities across the UK. The property is an ideal fit for our Clayton brand, under which we now operate nine hotels across seven cities in the UK.
“We look forward to getting to work immediately, with the existing hotel management team, to bring Dalata hospitality to the visitors and residents of Cambridge.”
Dublin-based Dalata Hotel Group plc was founded in 2007 and listed as a plc in 2014. The company has a strategy of owning or leasing its hotels and also has a small number of management contracts. The group’s portfolio now consists of 30 owned hotels, 11 leased hotels and three management contracts with a total of 9,201 bedrooms.
In addition to this, the group is currently developing nine new hotels and has plans to extend two of its existing hotels, with a total of 2,399 bedrooms due to open over the next three years. This will bring the total number of bedrooms in Dalata to more than 11,600. Dalata now has close to 5,000 employees. For the first six months of 2019, Dalata reported revenue of €201.9million and a profit after tax of €32.7million.
Speaking to the Cambridge Independent, Dalata said it expects to change the branding from Tamburlaine – named after a Christopher Marlowe play – to ‘Clayton Hotel Cambridge’ within the first quarter of 2020. The hotel management is expected to remain, confirmed a spokesperson.
“The plan is to grow the business of the hotel, there are no redundancies in the current business plan for the hotel,” added the spokesperson.
“We plan to invest further in the property and operate under our Clayton brand as a full four-star hotel. Clayton is already Ireland’s leading four-star hotel brand and we already operate Clayton’s in London – Chiswick, Cricklewood & City of London, Birmingham, Cardiff, Leeds and Manchester Airport in the UK.
“Our current pipeline in the UK includes Clayton’s in Glasgow, Manchester and Bristol. We will invest in the current restaurant and operate as part of the overall hotel.”
A reconfiguration of the internal layout of the hotel will result in an additional five bedrooms.
O’Callaghan Hotels was contacted for comment.
