Leading local architect Evan Williams has completed his 10-year odyssey to build an extended-stay hotel.
The 48-room hotel is called the R Hotel and is located on Kingston’s Renfrew Road. The 57,000 square foot hotel sits on 13,000 square feet and came in at a cost of US$6.5 million.
Speaking with Jamaica Observer Williams said: “I had a vision to provide a hotel service to business travellers coming to Kingston. Most hotels in Jamaica are marketed to the resort vacationer or holiday goer with the aim of enjoying this beautiful country.
“There was a need for business travellers, particularly with Kingston being the largest English–speaking city in the Caribbean. There was no real facility for business people coming to Jamaica. More often than not they would have to pay huge rates for hotels offering many facilities that the business traveller just doesn’t need. So I said, let us find a facility that gives the business traveller an option.”
Of the 48 rooms, 32 of them have kitchen facilities and each room has video conferencing, with the visitor able to have a 12-member conference from the TV screen in their room.
Before embarking on the project, Williams did extensive homework and research. He discovered that there are some 750,000 extended — stay rooms in North America but that there were no such extended — stay rooms in Jamaica.
He explained the concept is to sell a room for what one would pay for an apartment in town, in terms of square footage. There is a condition that once one buys that room it has to be leased back to Evan Williams’ management company so he in turn can rent it as a hotel room.
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