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Welcome to the 100ft deep hotel
Katharine Barney, Evening Standard29.10.08
THE man behind YO! Sushi is bidding to build a hotel and leisure complex in tunnels 100 feet below High Holborn.
Simon Woodroffe OBE, who also heads budget hotel group Yotel, today announced he wants to buy the Kingsway Tunnels.
Built in 1940, they are about a mile long and have served as an air-raid shelter, MI6 spy base and Cold War telephone exchange. The current owner, BT, has put them up for sale and they could be worth up to £5million.
Mr Woodroffe, a former presenter of BBC2's Dragon's Den, said the underground location did not deter him because the pod-style rooms in his Yotel chain do not have outdoor windows.
"The quantum leap in developing Yotel was to face the windows onto the corridors," he said. "It means we can go where others can't. The most common customer response today is, 'Why hasn't it been done before?'"
Mr Woodroffe envisages turning the tunnels into a "crash pad" aimed at clubbers during the weekend and City workers during the week. Proposals are for 150 to 200 rooms including a suite with a jacuzzi described as a "basement penthouse".
Guests would use an automated check-in and check-out system. Food could be ordered via TV in the rooms. There are also plans for a cinema, bar and club.
The Kingsway Tunnels cover about 77,000 square feet and sheltered up to 8,000 people during the Blitz. They were an MI6 base during the final years of the war and later used as a "reserve war room", a public records library, and a phone exchange connecting the Cold War hotline between the US and Soviet leaders. Until the mid-Nineties some 150 telephone engineers worked there every day. There was a snooker hall, canteen, bar and tropical fish tank.
Mr Woodroffe launched YO! Sushi in 1997 and sold his controlling interest in 2003 in a £10 million deal. He retains a 22 per cent stake. The first Yotel opened at Gatwick last year. There is also one at Heathrow and in Amsterdam. The design is influenced by the capsule hotels of Japan frequented by businessmen and women.
Cheapest Yotel rooms are £25 for four hours. Larger ones feature a double bed that spins round to become a sofa, washing facilities, wi-fi access, iPod connection and flat-screen TV. Mr Woodroffe said he and business partner Gerard Greene were "intent on taking the Yotel concept around the world, as well as underneath it".
However, a BT spokesman said it could be difficult to gain planning permission to use the tunnel as a hotel, because of its location. He warned of practical problems such as creating adequate fire escape routes from deep underground.
