York to get a new Starbucks, restaurant and bar – within city centre hotel

Fresh signs to be installed on a new city centre hotel have been unveiled – and a major coffee chain will open a branch at the ground floor of the venue.

The Malmaison hotel is due to open in Yorkshire House in spring 2021.

And a planning application for signs to be installed on the new 150-bedroom venue reveals that the clock on the historic building will be replaced and a branch of Starbucks could open on the ground floor of the hotel.

But council officers have highlighted that, under previous plans, the clock should not be illuminated and there should not be a Malmaison brand sign placed at the top of the building because of the “negative impact on sensitive important townscape views, an impact made even greater by its illumination”.

The hotel will also have a restaurant on Rougier Street – to be called Chez Mal Brasserie and Bar – and a sky bar boasting views of York Minster.

New gym

Work started on the former Aviva building in 2018, with a spokesman for the developers estimating at the time that it would be complete by the end of 2019.

But the project experienced setbacks caused by Leeds-based Broadley Group going into administration – followed by the Covid-19 crisis.

In April developer North Star announced it had taken charge to see the venture through to completion, working with the project funder Lothbury.

The hotel will also have a gym and a single-storey extension between the block and the Grand Hotel’s Rise Restaurant, Terrace and Bar.

Yorkshire House was built in 1962 and refurbished in 2000.

North Star are also the developers behind the plans for a Roman quarter attraction in Rougier Street.

The proposals, in partnership with York Archaeological Trust, include a two-year dig before a Roman visitor attraction, shops, apartments and offices are built on the site.