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UK: The owners of the Koko nightclub in Camden Town want to build a boutique hotel next door.
UK: The owners of the Koko nightclub in Camden Town want to build a boutique hotel next door.
The owners of Koko, formerly known as the Camden Palace, have announced plans to build a boutique hotel on top of a disused pub as part of an overhaul of the venue.
Olly Bengough and property firm Vevil International have bought a cluster of buildings next to the venue, and hope to create what they are calling “destination Koko”.
If plans are approved, the Hope and Anchor pub, in Camden‘s Crowndale Road, which closed in 2013, and two industrial properties at the corner of Bayham Street would be transformed into a 32-room, ‘wrap-around’ hotel.
Aimed at Koko guests, artists and crew, the five-storey hotel will have a bar and dining room on the ground floor of the former pub, and a second restaurant on the fourth-floor.
The existing tower will be turned into a single VIP “giant signature suite” over two floors with a recording studio for stars playing gigs at Koko. The green copper dome containing the building’s original water tanks will be turned into a bar linking the theatre with the new hotel next door.
The facade of the 1900 building will be restored and the cupola above the dome on the main façade fronting Camden High Street reinstated.
Historic England has welcomed the project “in principle” but raised concerns about the loss of number 65 Bayham Street and the “overly bulky” extension of the Hope and Anchor pub.
Bengough, who has owned the building for 13 years, said he was “extremely excited” about the proposals: “There are few venues in London as intimate and loved as Koko.”
www.koko.uk.com
