Aberdeen City Council and the Marriott hotel group yesterday sealed the deal to deliver a hotel in the city centre at the controversial Marischal Square development .
The new 126-room hotel will be Marriott International’s first expansion into the city centre, following the other company’s other two hotels outwith the city.
The £107 million Marischal Square project is also set to include office spaces and restaurants.
Work on the hotel will begin in January next year, and is expected to complete by summer 2017.
Aberdeen City Council leader Jenny Laing said: “It’s a very exciting time for us. It shows that big names out there want to come to Aberdeen and set up here, and that has to be something to be welcomed.
“Any kind of redevelopment means change, and sometimes that can be difficult for people to accept, and I think the architects that we’ve got working on this project and other projects in the city centre are conscious of that ,and have been sympathetic to the surrounding areas in their designs.”
Lorna McHattie, a former Robert Gordon University lecturer and member of the Simpson Civic Forum, a group that opposes the Marischal Square development, said: “We’re not really sure that the companies like Marriott that are signing up are entirely aware of concerns that have been raised by so many people across the city, especially for how unsympathetic the glass designs are with the surrounding granite of Provost Skene’s House and Marischal College.
“The fact is that the whole scheme is overdeveloped, you can get bars, restaurants and hotels anywhere in Edinburgh or Glasgow, what Aberdeen really needs is a unique selling point to set us apart and give a real reason for tourists to visit our city.”