King William Street Hotel

Sydney developer Equinox Property is converting a vacant, brutalist-era Adelaide Metro office building at 75-79 King William Street into a 129-room boutique hotel, adding several storeys atop the existing structure and topping it with a panoramic rooftop bar. It's a considerably scaled-down second attempt from a developer whose earlier 39-storey Wyndham Grand Adelaide tower on a related site never got built. Planning consent came through in February 2025, and there are signs of work under way, but no hotel brand has been announced and no opening date has been confirmed.

The place

The site sits at 75-79 King William Street, on Adelaide's central north-south spine and a short walk from Victoria Square, Rundle Mall and the Adelaide Central Market. The building's own history is transit-adjacent rather than touristic: it was most recently an Adelaide Metro ticketing and information office, and has sat vacant since 2019.

The concept

This is an adaptive reuse rather than a ground-up build: the design retains the existing brutalist-era Adelaide Metro office building — originally around six or seven storeys — and adds several further levels on top. Reporting is inconsistent on the final height, with the original approval described as roughly ten storeys and more recent coverage describing it as twelve, suggesting the design may have grown modestly since 2024/25 approval; this should be read as an open detail rather than a confirmed figure. The project's architect has called the result a "lightweight boutique hotel," about as close to an official positioning statement as exists, since no hotel brand has committed to operate it. Worth being precise about the backstory: this is a scaled-back replacement for an earlier, much larger proposal by the same developer on a related site — a 39-storey, roughly 266-room Wyndham Grand Adelaide tower approved in 2018, which was never built and has since been shelved. The current 129-room adaptive-reuse scheme is a distinct, considerably smaller project that emerged from that failed plan — not a rebrand of it — and the two should not be conflated.

Dining & wellness

Plans include a restaurant and retail space at ground level and meeting rooms and amenities in the basement. The most distinctive element is a two-storey private lounge and public bar at the top of the building, designed around 360-degree views toward the Adelaide Hills, the coast and the Adelaide Parklands. No operator is attached to any of this yet, so it should be read as architectural intent rather than a confirmed F&B program.