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

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.