Ruby Group has announced plans for a 169-room hotel in Southwark, marking its fourth property in the UK capital.
The new Ruby Hotel will open in 2024 and will be located within walking distance of the Tate Modern, the Southbank and Borough Market. The hotel will also be close to Southwark tube station, while a further four train stations (including Waterloo Station) are located no more than ten minutes’ walk away.
The hotel will be built in a new landscaped public space called Friars Yard at 160 Blackfriars Road, which will be developed by Endurance Land, who were advised by Jones Lang LaSalle, and investment partner Angelo Gordon. The space will also include a high-quality building complex for offices and retail space.
The hotel will open directly onto the inner courtyard and will comprise 169 rooms over seven floors, all of which will include full soundproofing, blackout curtains, high-quality linen and extra-long and wide custom mattresses. The new property will also feature a 24-hour bar, café and lounge on the ground floor.
The group currently has one London property close to Waterloo station (Ruby Lucy), though this is set to be joined by two additional hotels in Clerkenwell (Ruby Stella) in 2023 and Notting Hill (Ruby Zoe) in 2023. The fourth project will bring Ruby’s total capacity to 571 hotel rooms in London.
The Ruby describes itself as “lean luxury” brand that offers an affordable price by “rigorously cutting out the superfluous and focusing on the essential.”
Ruby Hotels founder and CEO Michael Struck commented:
“The current challenges and future prospects of the industry have confirmed our ‘Lean Luxury’ approach. We make a luxurious and unique hotel experience affordable for our guests, and combine this with a cost structure, which is leaner and more adaptable than usual. This has the added advantage of reducing the risk for our real estate partners.
“Our strategy works because we fit our luxuries into a relatively small area. We plan and build on a more modular basis; we centralise more and we consistently automate systems behind the scenes.”
Jonathan Fletcher, CEO of Endurance Land, added:
“We are delighted to have exchanged the agreement for lease with Ruby Hotels at 160 Blackfriars Road and look forward to welcoming them to the building in early 2024. Ruby’s ‘Lean Luxury’ brand is the ideal fit for the mixed-use development on the site.”
