Tiniest hotel rooms in Cork at city's new and shiny microsleeper
Workers apply finishing touches to 'The Mix' a new public bar at REZz microsleeper, which opens this weekend.Â
BIG in Japan, small in Cork - the city’s first microsleeper, a €10.5m hipster hotel on MacCurtain Street/York Hill, is set to open its doors to guests this weekend as part of the new and expanding REZz brand.
Originally scheduled to open in May but delayed by the pandemic, the 2,000 sq m 72-bedroom, seven-storey over ground premises, on a 546 sq m site, brings a fresh tourist offering to the city, where guests will overnight in colour co-ordinated compact pods, each with a kingsize bed, an ensuite with a power shower, high speed wifi and a 50” TV.
Ray Byrne, director of MacCurtain St Hoteliers Ltd, who created the “bigger isn’t always better” REZz brand along with business partner Eoin Doyle, said he was “very happy” with how REZz Cork has turned out - he expects it to plug the gap between hostels and budget hotels. He has previously described the brand as “Ryanair meets Penneys of micro hotels”.
REZz Cork general manager David Manning said they were very excited about the new venture, a hotel with the tidiest (in size) rooms in the city, designed by Meitheal Architects, on a site formerly occupied by the four- storey Windsor Inn.
“It’s so different, I think it will be incredible. And the city is our lobby, which is terrific for our guests. Everything is within easy reach - bars, restaurants - guests can just drop their bags and go and explore.” Mr Manning said they were delighted to be in the increasingly busy Victorian Quarter and they intend, in the coming months, to build a food offering in collaboration with neighbouring restaurants and using Banba, a mobile contactless ordering App, designed by Cork man Cormac O’Riordan.
It means guests will be able to order food to the hotel using the App and choose from the menus of nearby premises such as the White Rabbit, and Gallaghers, as well as more recent MacCurtain Street arrival, Thompsons Restaurant, and Moody’s tapas bar at the start of the Lower Glanmire Road.
Mr Byrne, who together with his wife owns the Wineport Lodge in Westmeath, and who owns the Eccles Hotel in Glengarriff along with Mr Doyle , said they would start off with about 25% of rooms booked at REZz this weekend “and build from there”. The top floor penthouse suite is not yet ready but the hotel bar opens this weekend. Guests in search of teas and coffees or somewhere to wash/dry/iron clothes can do so at communal rooms on every second floor, where brightly coloured doors and funky wall art combine nicely with the industrial aesthetic of the building.
Mr Byrne said he expects REZz to appeal to Generation Z - those in their 20s and 30s who want an inexpensive central base for exploring the city.
With the hospitality sector re-opening, he believes the timing is good for REZz. In West Cork, at the Eccles, which Mr Manning also manages, they are having a bumper season.
“We went from being closed to being full overnight. We’ve a great team at the Eccles and everyone is working six/seven days a week to get the money in while we can,” he said.
Mr Byrne said they were already seeing signs of recovery in the hotel trade last year, with huge demand from the domestic market, although it was "very stop and start”.
However the Eccles was currently enjoying “a pretty much vintage summer”, as was Wineport Lodge. Mr Manning said the 60-bedroom, 278-year-old Eccles was “full to the brim every night”.
Mr Byrne, with Mr Doyle, has a number of other hotels in the pipeline, including more of the REZz brand, in Dublin and Kilkenny. Of two planned for Dublin, preliminary work is underway on one in Dame Court , with a decision pending from An Bord Pleanála in relation to a second Dublin REZz in Rathmines. Kilkenny REZz is also currently with An Bord Pleanála.
Mr Byrne also has planning permission for a 58-bed hotel at the site of the former National Irish Bank on South Mall, but is holding off to see what the future has in store for the much-delayed €80m Cork Event Centre, for which the sod was turned more than five years ago, at the former Beamish brewery site.
“When you see all the things that are happening in Cork, particularly in the Docklands, you would have to be optimistic,” he said.
He said going ahead with the South Mall hotel did “not hinge” on the go-ahead for the Event Centre. Ideally, he would like to get going on it sooner rather than later, because the contractors who built REZz, Townmore Construction, were also due to build the South Mall hotel “and I would be hoping to move them over”, Mr Byrne said.
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