W Hotel announces its luxury return to Sydney

W Hotels, part of the Marriott International group, has announced it is re-entering Sydney after a long absence.

 The new build property, part of The Ribbon development will be designed by award-winning architect HASSEL and will open in 2020,

The hotel’s site, which was the former IMAX theatre, will undergo a $700 million transformation.

It will also have a Star Casino complex, ICC theatre and Sea Life Aquarium adjacent to it.

It will boast 593 guestrooms, and serviced apartments.

It will also have a range of entertainment facilities, including the “Wet Deck”, which is an infinity pool overlooking the harbour.

And it will have a “Living Room”, the W Hotel’s  popular cocktail bar.

Guests will enjoy a restaurant, two bars, a gym and spa centre.

In addition to that, there will be a 925-square-metres of event space for conferences and social occasions.

As for the old IMAX theatre, it will be retained after a revamp.

“Darling Harbour is going through a rejuvenation – [it’s] an exciting time. It is repositioning itself as Sydney’s premium tourist destination with a mix of leisure and business travellers,” Richard Crawford, senior director of development for Australia and New Zealand at Marriott International, told Broadsheet.

“[The launch of the W Sydney] symbolises the changing landscape of hotels in Australia. We are moving away from legacy hotels that lack imagination to the tomorrow hotels that hit the millennial mindset of travelling,” Crawford says.

The property sitting on the prime Darling Harbour site will be added to the W Hotel, Brisbane, the first five-star hotel the opening in the Queensland capital in decades. The Brisbane opening was on 1 June.

And there’s a W hotel under construction in Melbourne.

W Hotels Worldwide is one of the world’s largest luxury hotel chains. It has 78 venues around the world with operations in Bali, New York, London and Hong Kong.

Leon Getler 19th June 2018.