Marlin Apartments signed up construction firm McAleer & Rushe (of County Tyrone, IR) to undertake the construction of a unique new build on the prestigious location of Westminster Bridge Road.

This will add to the 700 serviced apartments which Marlin owns and operates in Central London, however this will take the company into the new territory of the Apart-Hotel. While the current Marlin serviced apartment stock have full size kitchens and are around three times the size of a standard London hotel room, this new apart-hotel model will instead have kitchenettes and be ideal for shorter stays.

This also proves to be a strategic step into a leisure market for Marlin who has continued to see leisure business grow year on year. The location of the new site is a five minute walk to Waterloo and a short stroll to the London Eye, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey; ideal for London tourists. Being at Waterloo with ample transport links and a short distance to Westminster, London Bridge and Victoria this will still target their large corporate audience.

Cully said: “The development on Westminster Bridge Road is a very exciting proposition for Marlin Apartments as it allows us to diversify our offering to both the corporate and leisure travel markets. “By adopting the apart-hotel business model for the first time, we can offer guests a more compact offering but with the same high level of design, facilities, style, customer service and value as we already offer across Marlin Apartments’ six other sites.”

McAleer & Rushe famously built the W Hotel in Leicester Square and will be working with Marlin through the whole project from demolishing a 1950s office block on the site. Martin Magee, construction managing director at McAleer & Rushe, said: “This is a very handsome, well-located scheme which we are very proud to deliver.” The deal was signed on Wednesday by McAleer & Rushe chief executive Eamonn Laverty and Susan Cully (MD) and John Corless (CEO) from Marlin Apartments.