By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A stylish $75 million hotel is the latest dramatic landmark to grace Melbourne’s Eastern suburbs.
The 171-room Hyatt Place Melbourne Caribbean Park, which towers next to Eastlink in Wantirna, was officially unveiled on Wednesday 16 February.
The hotel, designed by award-winning Peter Ryan Architects and SJB Interior designers, is aimed for both business guests and leisure travellers.
It takes advantage of being next to the giant Caribbean Park business precinct, as well as golf, wineries and attractions in the Yarra Valley and Dandenong Ranges.
The hotel features spacious guestrooms with separate sleep, work and play spaces, free Wi-Fi, complimentary breakfast, meeting spaces and a fitness centre.
Open for lunch and dinner, there’s ‘farm-to-table’ a la carte dining at Archie’s Farm Restaurant & Bar.
It was named after the late Archie Spooner who in 1943 bought the 255-acre former farmland for 19 pounds per acre.
His family has since transformed the area to Caribbean Park’s multi-billion-dollar business precinct over the past 30 years.
His grandson Ben Spooner, who is Caribbean Park’s director, said the farm now resembled a “micro city of industrial, office, retail and entertainment precincts” – something that would “exceed Archie’s wildest of dreams”.
Mr Spooner declared Caribbean Park was now the “largest and fastest growing business precinct outside of the CBD”.
The hotel was another piece of the family’s incredible vision.
“It is an important milestone in the development of Caribbean Park that today we officially open a new Hyatt Place hotel,’’ he said.
“It’s a big day for our family. We’re incredibly proud of this latest addition to the park.”
After the travails and delays of Covid, Mr Spooner was expecting its hotel to benefit from a “strong bounce back in corporate travel in 2022”.
“We are very proud of the quality of construction of this new Hyatt Place hotel which combines style, innovation and 24/7 conveniences to create an easy to navigate experience for today’s multi-tasking traveller.”
Hyatt’s Pacific general manager and area vice-president Robert Dawson celebrated what was the second Hyatt Place hotel’s opening in Melbourne. It is the 10th in Australia.
He acknowledged that the Spooner family had “pushed to make things better”, creating a hotel that was “accessible and open”.
“We want to really take our place in the community.”
Mr Dawson welcomed the “opening” borders, though it would take a “few months” for the hotel to kick on.
“By the end of the year I think it will be a really successful operation.
“Hyatt congratulates the Spooner family on this significant investment.
“We are proud to partner with Caribbean Park to create this new hotel which will introduce new standards in service and accommodation into this region.”
Mr Spooner’s father and family patriarch Rodney Spooner still remembers the former pastures on the site.
And keeps an image of the original contract signed by his father Archie to buy the land.
“To see them build this building is a dream come true.”
