Melbourne's first Shangri-La hotel to be established in 65-storey tower

A proposed 64-storey twin-tower development in Melbourne would be the home of Victoria's first Shangri-La hotel, it was announced on Wednesday.

A Honk Kong-based company confirmed on Wednesday that it would occupy one of the twin towers overlooking the Exhibition Gardens in Melbourne's Central Business District (CBD).

The hotel chain has made a deal with Malaysian developer SP Satia to establish a 500-room hotel in one of the buildings on the corner of the Exhibition and Latrobe streets.

The 475 million U.S. dollar development would also feature a second identical tower which will be occupied by residential apartments.

City of Melbourne councillors on Tuesday night voted to approve the application which will now go to the state government for final approval.

If approved by the state government, the building would become the first Shangri-La hotel in Victoria with others having already been established in Sydney and in Cairns, a popular tourist destination in northern Queensland.

The hospitality giant already operated 99 hotels across Asia, Europe, North America, the Middle East and Australia with more than 38,000 total rooms.

Jamie Govenlock, a spokesperson for Australian architecture firm Urbis which has been hired to work on the proposal, said the hotel would create more than 1,000 ongoing jobs for Victoria.

The towers would be the fifth and sixth tallest buildings in the Melbourne CBD on the number of storeys when completed.

Plans show that the two buildings would be connected by a footbridge on the 50th floor and that almost 4, 000 square meters on the lower floors would be occupied by offices and retail space. Endit