Crowne Plaza Christchurch

Crowne Plaza Christchurch opened on 30 June 2017 in the former Forsyth Barr office tower on Victoria Square. It gives IHG's brand 204 rooms and four meeting spaces in the rebuilt centre, and replaces the earlier Crowne Plaza that the 2011 earthquake destroyed.

The place

The hotel stands on the corner of Colombo and Armagh streets, opposite Victoria Square in the Christchurch CBD. The same area was home to The Golden Fleece, one of the city's first hotels, which opened in 1851 after the First Four Ships brought the early settlers.

The concept

The previous Crowne Plaza stood at the other end of Victoria Square. Warren and Mahoney designed it for Southern Pacific Hotels Corporation, and it opened in 1988 with what was then New Zealand's largest atrium and a bridge to the Town Hall. The 2011 earthquake damaged it badly and it was demolished in 2012, leaving the brand without a Christchurch address until 2017.

The replacement is a conversion, not a new build. The Forsyth Barr tower survived the quakes and was sold as is in August 2014 to a local consortium, which trades as MC Christchurch Holdings and co-owns the hotel with IHG. Floor counts differ between sources, 17 or 19, so the number is left out here. The refit is described as costing tens of millions of dollars and included five new lifts and a scissor staircase.

The result is 204 rooms, of which eight are junior suites and 196 standard rooms, billed as the largest upscale hotel in the central city. Rooms have free Wi-Fi and Samsung smart TVs that mirror a phone by Bluetooth. Four event spaces, among them the Ellis, Gartner and Oram rooms, take their names from the original owners of The Golden Fleece.

Dining & wellness

The ground floor holds a deli café serving Mojo coffee, called Café 1851 after the Golden Fleece, the Social Wine Bar, and the Market Place restaurant and bar, built around an interactive marketplace dining concept.