Rosewood Hotels and Resorts is to add 107 suites, a restaurant and a ladies spa to its Al Faisaliah Hotel in Riyadh. The project, due to open in late 2009, will see the former residences block at the hotel converted into an all-suite wing with its own reception area.
The suites will start at 65 sqm, rising to the Royal Penthouse Suite at over 500 sqm, and will increase the total number of rooms at the hotel from 224 to 331. When completed the block will add an Italian / Mediterranean restaurant with show kitchen to the hotel, as well as a 900-sqm ladies spa with twelve treatment rooms to compliment the existing male-only offering.
The wing is located on the other side of a grassed plaza from the main building, and will be connected both by a covered walkway, and through Al Faisaliah Tower. Designed by Foster and Partners, the tower is the centrepiece of the Al Faisaliah Complex, and one of only two skyscrapers in Riyadh’s city centre, the other being the Kingdom Centre (home to the Four Seasons Riyadh). The top of Al Faisaliah Tower features the eye-catching Globe restaurant, also managed by Rosewood.
Rosewood operates two hotels in Riyadh, the other being the smaller Hotel Al Khozama (located behind Al Faisaliah Hotel) which was the city’s first international hotel when it opened in the 1970s. There are plans to replace this building with a new tower and Rosewood hotel, although no official details have yet been released. Rosewood also opened the 127-room Rosewood Corniche property in Jeddah last year, located on the city’s North Corniche.
