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The Grand Hotel has been a significant landmark on the Princes Highway in Sydney since its
construction in 1893. The Southern Hotel Group has owned the hotel for over 25 years. In
that time Sydney and the local patrons have changed considerably, prompting previous
refurbishments and refining the product offering. The hotel has been through many guises
recently a sports bar and in the past even a ‘wild west’ themed bar. In this the second
refurbishment Mark Randall from Cloud Nine Design has designed the hotels facilities are
brought bang up to date. To further enhance the new interior a new logo and branding has
also been developed.
The hotel is a land locked site so the only way to gain space to expand, required the
relocation of the public bar by borrowing space from the bottle shop. This enabled the
gaming lounge to increase in size. The rationalization of the spaces has centralised staffing
into two areas, the main bar serving the bottle shop and by combining the gaming cashier
and the TAB cashiers. The patrons of the enlarged gaming room benefit from new toilets on
the ground floor; there were only ever male toilets, together with additional facilities on the
first floor. All are refurbished with high quality finishes.
The overriding aim of the refurbishment has been to reinvent the hotel and encourage
people who have otherwise been discouraged from entering, particularly women, which may
have been due to the closed nature of the front of the hotel, an inability to see what the
place actually looked like and who was in there.
To overcome this barrier three new full
height windows have been incorporated into the curved wall facing the
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highway, glazed with
acoustic glass to keep the noise
down. This opens the hotel up, showing patrons how
inviting the space is and provides an interesting eye
on the busy world outside. Additionally,
three full eight bi-fold doors have been inserted to the windows of the side laneway which
allows connection between patrons eating and drinking outside.
Facilities like the TAB and a pool table have been retained but with the use of decorative
glazed and solid screens these functions can take place simultaneously without disturbing
other patrons. The screens can be retracted to allow good sight lines when live acts are
performing.
Custom sofa’s and tables allow for small groups to gather and provide cosy locations for
people to wait for friends. The interior design takes references from the busy highway
outside; the striped wallpaper reflects the flowing traffic going by outside. This is further
emphaised in the feature illuminated bar front. Polished steel column casings reflect colour
and movement passing by the new windows.
The new public bar has attracted quite a new crowd, both men and women. Together with
the bar the hotel now has a luxury gaming room with 30 poker machines, TAB and pool
areas, bottle shop, café/bistro and twelve rooms for accommodation.
The refurbishment has also laid plans for further developments with the incorporation of the
infrastructure to allow for a first floor terrace bar and several flexible function spaces. The
development of these spaces can take place with minimal disruption to the current hotel
operation.
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