W Hotel slated to open in Sentosa Cove in 2011

IT IS confirmed: the trendy W Hotel chain will open its first Singapore premises in Sentosa Cove in 2011.

The 250-room hotel will be part of the Quayside Isle Collection, a mixed lifestyle development being built by City Developments (CDL) that will include homes, shops and restaurants.

Quayside’s 228 homes are said to be planned as W-brand residences – one of the first in South-east Asia, after the W Koh Samui Retreat and Residences in Thailand to be completed next year.

When contacted yesterday, CDL declined to comment.

But the Korea Herald yesterday reported that Ssangyong Engineering & Construction had won a 150 billion won (S$178 million) design-and-build project for a W Hotel in Singapore.

The seven-storey hotel will have 241 guest rooms, said the report. It will also come with a 500-seat banquet hall, a yacht pier, a swanky restaurant, a swimming pool and a private spa.

The hotel is understood to be located along the seafront, while the shops and residences will face the One Degree 15 marina.

In keeping with CDL’s environment-friendly initiatives, the W Hotel will have green features such as glass with highly insulating properties and a roof membrane that minimises energy consumption, said the report.

Further confirmation that the W Hotel will open its glamorous doors here appears on the website of Starwood Hotels and Resorts, the company behind the W Hotel brand.

There is a listing on the site for a ‘W Singapore – Sentosa Cove’ slated to open on July 1, 2011, with 250 guest rooms.

Talk of a W Hotel being part of Quayside surfaced as early as 2007, although CDL has been tight-lipped on the details. A report by The Straits Times as recently as February this year said the name of the hotel was still to be confirmed.

Reports in 2006 said the Quayside hotel was to be a 320-room Westin, also a Starwood brand, which is understood to be the plan submitted when CDL tendered for the Sentosa site.

If the talk about W-brand residences at the Quayside proves true, it will be CDL’s second Starwood hotel- brand residences, after the St Regis Residences in Cuscaden Road.

Sentosa currently has about 1,200 hotel rooms spread across seven hotels and at least 1,650 more rooms to come within the next three years, including those at the W Hotel.

Source: Straits Times, 23 Oct 2009