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600 New Hotel Rooms in Downtown Stockholm within Two Years
Contractors Hans Mellström and Ejnar Söder are converting the former Norrmalm district police station and the Mercedeshuset building on Vasagatan to hotels. The hotels are owned by the building company JM. These new hotels, called Nordic Light and Nordic Sea, boast a combined total of 500 rooms and are expected to open at the beginning of 2001.
Hotel developer Ejnar Söder and Hans Mellström, a cofounder of WM-Data, have formed a company to operate this pair of new hotels on Vasagatan. Nordic Sea, housed in the former police station, will have 368 rooms and a conference center, while Nordic Light, located in the old Mercedeshuset building, will have 175 rooms.
"The good news for Stockholm is that two new hotels will be opened right downtown this year," says Arne Rosenlund of Stockholm Information Service (SIS). The two hotels are very well planned, and feature rooms for business travelers that are furnished with a desk and Internet connection. The concept is that the location of the hotels, the size of the rooms and the special furnishings are all based on the special needs of business travelers. There will be no restaurant in these hotels, but they will contain a lobby, bar, and breakfast room.
More and more hotel rooms
Two new hotels have already been scheduled to open in 2000. The Stallmästaregården is building a new hotel with 50 rooms. This four-star hotel will open in the fall of 2000.
In March, Hotell J, Tornvillan will open with new additions. This hotel will have 46 rooms, six of them suites. Columbus Hotell & Vandrarhem has also expanded their hotel operations, with 20 rooms on two floors. The first nine rooms were finished during the winter of 1999, and the remaining 11 were ready in January 2000.
In addition to this, the City of Stockholm has created 265 new hotel rooms during the last six months. The majority of these new rooms were added to existing hotels.
Famous names attract visitors from abroad
With hotel occupancy rates of 90 percent, Stockholm welcomes new hotels. In addition to hotels for business travelers, there is a need for more rooms for private travelers at lower rates during the week, additional multi-star business hotels, and more international hotel chains.
"The name of a hotel is important today," says Arne Rosenlund. "Organizers of international conferences and meetings often like to use the same hotel chain wherever in the world they hold an event. What Stockholm needs is a few more international hotel chains."
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