The former headquarters of the Metropolitan Police is to be turned into a luxury hotel, with rooms costing up to £10,000 a night, by a London-based property firm headed by a Corkman.
Scotland Yard, the grade II-listed property is one of a number of iconic buildings – Admiralty Arch, off Trafalgar Square is another – that are being sold, or leased by the British government as it seeks to cut spending.
"We want to create a world-class hotel there," said Millstreet-born Don O'Sullivan, managing director of the Galliard Group.
After a £100 million refit, 3-5 Great Scotland Yard, which once held felons, will become a seven-storey, 235-bedroom hotel, complete with a grand entrance and the spectacular £10,000-a-night VIP suite.
The building, from where the investigation into the Jack the Ripper murders was led, has been taken over by Galliard from the government on a 125-year lease.
The streets off Whitehall are changing quickly because of the new attitude by ministers to iconic properties, while foreign embassies are also thinking of cashing in on soaring property prices.
“The whole government quarter is changing,” says O’Sullivan.
Great Scotland Yard’s history drifts back to Tudor times, when it was home to Scottish kings paying homage to the Henry VII and later to Elizabeth I.
The building was immortalised by Charles Dickens, but, most especially, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in his tales of Sherlock Holmes’ derring-do. The name of the building became the force’s brand.
Soon, the Metropolitan Police was known simply as “Scotland Yard”.
Two new storeys will go on top of the existing five-storey building, along with two more underneath, while an adjoining Edwardian office building will be turned into a VIP suite.
Enjoying several floors, it will have its own entrance – perfect for business oligarchs, celebrities, musicians and heads of state for whom money is no object.
The market for top-quality accommodation in London has not been sated, O’Sullivan believes, adding that just one-in-eight of those hotels built, or refurbished, since 2005 have been five-star.
Galliard is building three other hotels in Canary Wharf, Greenwich and Deptford, with a total of nearly 300 bedrooms.
