The renovation of the Southern Klotild Palace – VIDEO
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After the renovation of the Northern Klotild Palace, it is the southern palace’s turn to be renewed. The Turkish owners are starting the renovation just recently and, according to the plans, it will be finished in 2018. They not only count with the hotel guests. There’s also going to be a coffee house in the place of the onetime Belvárosi Kávéház and the first real Turkish restaurant of Budapest will be opened as well.
According to turizmusonline.hu, the renovation of the 5* luxury hotel with its 156 rooms, the Spa, the creation of a Sky Bar, the renovation of the coffee house and the building of the Turkish restaurant are part of a 10-billion-forint investment.
One thing that shows the importance of this investment is that the Turkish ambassador of Hungary and the owner, Süleyman Özyer, made an appearance together at the press-conference last Friday. This is going to be the first city hotel investment of the Özyer Group; they mostly built family resorts in Turkey up till now. They also have interests in the media, the energy industry and other fields.
The company’s activity isn’t only about business; they want to strengthen the Turkish-Hungarian friendship by supporting the initiation of a twin city relation between Héviz and Fethiye, where their headquarters are located.
It was another swing to the development that the Hungarian government ranked the works as works of high importance regarding the national economy. This is a step to facilitate Turkish-Hungarian economic relations and the growth of investments like this.
The building itself has a very adventurous story. Until the end of the 19th century there were 1000-2000 m2 flats in the building. This is where the onetime Belvárosi Kávéház functioned first as a coffee house, later as a casino. The building got damaged in World War II and even though smaller reparations had been made, it was evacuated in 2012 due to its life-threatening condition. 89% of it was bought in 2014 by Melis Investment Kft., the subsidiary company of Özyer, and then the remaining part was bought last week by the Özyer Group.
The owner wants to accomplish the project with the co-operation of exclusively Hungarian entrepreneurs. The choosing of the designer happened through application; out of 8 applicants the Puhl és Dajka Építész iroda won the task of designing while the Céh Zrt. won the task of the execution of the project management.