WMK in collaboration with the client and consultant team has been granted planning approval by the City of Monash for a new Courtyard By Marriott Hotel located at 253 Wellington Road, Mulgrave in Melbourne’s South East.

The hotel seeks to service a growing community, where education, health, and commercial activities present strong demand drivers for visitor accommodation.

The design includes a 212 Key Courtyard By Marriott Hotel, along with associated function spaces, meeting rooms and car parking. A food and beverage offering at ground floor integrates the hotel and provides an improved amenity to the surrounding offices within the business park in which the hotel is located.

The architectural design takes cues from the existing modernist heritage office building, the former BHP Melbourne Research Laboratories, located within the existing commercial office precinct. Rectilinear proportions, and a refined material palette consisting of concrete, expressed steel and glazing feature predominately throughout the design. Refined simplicity coupled with an inherent honesty in expression lets the hotel sit within the 20m green boulevard corridor that features so prominently along Wellington Road.

The proposal includes the reinvigoration of the heritage forecourt which seeks to improve the quality of the outdoor space with the addition of an outdoor pavilion stitching the existing office accommodation with the hotel within a redefined ground level, arrival experience.

Construction is expected to commence late 2022.