Work to convert the former Chicago Rock Cafe and Groove nightclub in Ipswich’s Northgate Street into a new easyHotel is now well under way.
There was a delay in the project – but now it is covered in scaffolding and it is an active building site.
The hotel is due to open later this year and will have 94 bedrooms and a coffee shop on the ground floor. It will offer rooms at a budget price – and the chain is currently growing across Europe and the Middle East.
It was set up by easyJet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou in 2005 and is due to open another 14 hotels, including Ipswich, in 2018.
The new hotel is next to the former Great White Horse which for generations was the top hotel in the town centre – but its days of offering rooms to guests is over.
It is due to be converted into a business centre and for part of its first floor to be turned into extra space for the Starbucks cafe on the ground floor.
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