Couple plan £90m hotel on derelict Soho site

A central London site that has been undeveloped since World War II is set to be developed into a £90m hotel scheme with housing attached by boutique hotel operator, Firmdale Hotels.

The three acre site called Ham Yard is in Soho, just off Regent Street and has been acquired for £30m by a husband and wife team - Tim and Kit Kemp.

Together they own Firmdale which will spend around £60m building a 100-room hotel plus 50,000 sq ft of housing on the plot which has been left largely untouched since the Blitz. A third of the housing planned will be affordable.

The couple are planning to fund the project by raising £56m from a sale and leaseback of two of their six London hotels, the Knightsbridge Hotel and Number 16 in Kensington. They have been approached by a German investment fund that is keen to buy the two freeholds.

Subject to planning approval, work on the Ham Yard site is expected to start next year.

The acquisition of the site comes as the the hotel group prepares for the opening of its first hotel outside of London, Crosby Street Hotel, in the SoHo district of New York after completion of an $80m (£49m) project.

Mr Kemp said that the Ham Yard hotel would be the group’s flagship adding it is not being built to compete with Firmdale's other Soho hotel but that it will be "more luxurious and have more facilities.”