New hotel for Newcastle after planners reject Jerry Schwartz’s student accommodation plans
Sydney hotelier Jerry Schwartz will go ahead with plans to construct a high-rise hotel in Newcastle’s Wharf Road after planning authorities rejected his proposal for student accommodation.
The Hunter and Central Coast Regional Planning Panel denied approval for his nine-storey boarding house, leaving Schwartz with a previous approval in place for a $28 million hotel on the site, across the road from his Rydges Newcastle hotel.
“The irony is I’ve got a current, approved DA for a larger building,” he told The Newcastle Herald. “The rules and objections have changed since the DA was approved for the hotel.
“The bad news is no student accommodation; the good news is there’ll be a new hotel in Newcastle.”
The new hotel with complement Schwartz’s $3.5 million acquisition of $3.5 of Newcastle Post Office in December which he plans to convert into a function centre and an Aboriginal cultural area.
“I’m quite happy because I get to build another hotel, but I think it’s disadvantageous to the city,” he said.
“It just makes it that much harder for students to accommodate themselves while they’re going to university. I tried my best.”
Sheridan Randall, 8th January 2019
