Royal York Hotel opened for business on Valentines weekend 2008. This marked completion of conversion works reinstating it back to it’s formal glory as one of Brighton’s most prominent hotels located at the end of the picturesque ‘Old Steine’ in the heart of the town.

McCarey Simmonds were responsible for the structural alteration and repair works to the main building, most recently used as council records and registary office, bringing it back to it’s original use as a 51 bedroom hotel. The roof structure was modified to form 8 penthouse appartments with stunning views across Brighton and the sea.

The building was originally converted in 1819 from houses to a 100 bed hotel. Known as the Royal York Hotel it became almost derelict before it was taken over by Sir Harry Preston in 1901. Following the hotel’s refurbishment he wined and dined London newspaper editors to promote visitors, particularly motorists, to the town and to encourage them to stay at his hotel.

Adenstar start work next week on the construction of two town houses and two maisonettes on the car park site of Lansdowne Place Hotel within the centre of Brighton.

A small site with particular problems gave us an engineering challenge.

• An adopted foul drainage sewer running centrally across the site at a depth of 4.5 metres below ground level requiring re-diversion if Southern Water were to remove there objection to the development of the site.
• The need to limit the extent of the diversion to within the site boundary to avoid costly excavation works within the footpath and highway.
• The need to maximise the available site area for residential use while allowing for the diversion of the sewer to the far north end of the site.
• The requirement to have basements on all properties necessitated the need for a bored piled cantilever retaining wall around the site perimeter.
• The need to keep the superstructure construction simple to mitigate the expensive groundworks.