Distinction Dunedin Hotel

Distinction Dunedin Hotel occupies the city's former 1937 Chief Post Office, vacant for around two decades before Distinction Hotels converted it into a 127-room property in the Warehouse Precinct in 2015. The former mail vaults now operate as The Vaults, a set of private dining rooms off the hotel's restaurant, Parcels.

The place

The hotel occupies 6 Liverpool Street in Dunedin's Warehouse Precinct, part of The Exchange, the city's historic business centre, within walking distance of the Dunedin Railway Station and the Octagon.

The concept

The hotel occupies Dunedin's former Chief Post Office, a Stripped Classical building designed by government architect John Thomas Mair and opened in 1937 on Princes Street. It served as the city's main post office until 1994, then stood vacant for around two decades before Invercargill-based Distinction Hotels bought and converted it, opening in 2015 as the group's first Dunedin property, in the city's Warehouse Precinct. The former mail vaults, reached through their original steel doors, were converted into a set of private dining rooms rather than reworked beyond recognition. Distinction Hotels has since confirmed a second, separate Dunedin project: a planned conversion of Philip Laing House, at the corner of Princes and Rattray Streets, targeted for 2028.

Dining & wellness

Parcels Restaurant serves breakfast, lunch, high tea and dinner, Post Bar handles pre-dinner drinks, and The Vaults - the former post office's steel-doored mail vaults - operate as private dining rooms for small groups.