A rundown hostel on Hove seafront has been put up for sale for about £7 million after homeless charity St Mungo’s pulled out of using it.
The Smart Sea View Hostel, above, also known as the Smart Sea View Hotel, in St Catherine’s Terrace, in Kingsway, Hove, is being marketed to “developers, care home providers and hoteliers”.
The owner, Topclass Investments, bought the property for less than £650,000 in October 2001 when John Houlton and his family sold it after running a hotel there for 35 years.
The premises, formerly known as St Catherine’s Lodge, and later as St Catherine’s Lodge Hotel, was used most recently to house former rough sleepers.
St Mungo’s housed up to 50 people at a time there as part of Brighton and Hove City Council’s No Second Night Out service from October last year until July.
But the charity pulled out of the premises when the need for significant repairs came to light, in particular, to the electrical wiring.
St Mungo’s said recently that it planned to make short-term use of Hyman Fine House, in Burlington Street, Kemp Town, for the No Second Night Out service from this month.
Up to 45 people will be given food, shelter and personalised support while their longer-term housing needs are assessed and managed.
On Hove seafront, the service prompted a flood of complaints from neighbours, with one saying that crime and anti-social behaviour had turned the locality into a “no go” area.
Sussex Police said that there were at least 38 incidents linked to the hostel in just the first four months of the year – “quite a high number of emergency calls for a smaller location”.
An officer suggested that the true number was likely to be higher and added that police had dealt with violence, theft, harassment, racial abuse, aggressive and anti-social behaviour, financial exploitation and suicide risks.
In June, the council’s Planning Committee voted to grant retrospective planning permission to St Mungo’s to use the site as a 50-bedroom hostel despite neighbours’ objections. Weeks later it closed.
Similarly, the council itself started used the building as a hostel without planning permission within days of the purchase by Topclass Investments, run by 73-year-old Hezi Zakai.
At least two estate agents have advertised the freehold for St Catherine’s Lodge for sale, with one saying: “Manley Properties are pleased to offer this rare investment opportunity to purchase a vacant hotel in a prime position in Brighton and Hove.
“The property is located just a few steps away from the seafront and the building offers spectacular views of the sea, making it an ideal position for a hotel or residential development subject to gaining the necessary consents.
“The property is also situated a short walk from Hove Station, offering quick and easy access to Gatwick airport and central London.
“The hotel comprises 55 en suite rooms (and) meeting rooms. The building offers stunning many features throughout (with a) gross internal area of 28,071 sq ft.
“The hotel offers potential to modernise and reconfigure to add further accommodation by way of converting some of the communal spaces and also has further massing potential
“The property would suit alternative uses, such as residential redevelopment (or) assisted living, subject to the usual consents.”
Neighbouring flats have tended to sell for more than £300,000 over the past few years – even fairly modest properties.
The Right Move website said: “Properties in St Catherine’s Terrace had an overall average price of £330,500 over the last year.
“Overall, sold prices in St Catherine’s Terrace over the last year were 9 per cent up on the previous year.”
St Catherine’s Lodge was for some years the home of the wealthy 19th century trader Stephen Ralli and members of his family. He was commemorated with the building of the Ralli Hall, in Denmark Villas, near Hove railway station.
Amazing that a company that makes money out of peoples misery is called ‘top class investments ltd’ !
That BHCC have allowed this slum landlord to gain huge profits whilst not maintaining the building at all.
Shameful.
BHCC loves paying fortunes to slum landlords all the while turning a blind eye to shockingly poor standards, Planning breaches and safety violations. Troublingly cozy relationships between BHCC officers and slum landlords has been an issue in this city for many years. The Smart Sea View Hotel building was NEVER safe for habitation when BHCC commissioned St Mungo’s to house people there in breach of planning permission. It was a complete racket that got found out…only then did St Mungo’s pull out. The site is earmarked as a development site in the City Plan. Let’s hope some much needed, new affordable housing can be built there.
This former residence, former hotel, has areas that are covered in floor to ceiling Delft tiles. This could be a lovely boutique hotel again that could host weddings and functions.
Worth doing because the King Alfred ballroom won’t exist if another redevelopment attempt comes to King Alfred in years to come.
The only housing likely to be built on this site is very high price secind home luxury housing – which does not help the housing shortage problem.
That would be wonderful! I remember Kennith Branagh stayed there when they filmed Shakleton, he remarked on how beautiful the building was!!
The council are completely irresponsible sticking a hostel for 45 rough sleepers anywhere in the city. They simply do not do this in other areas as it just ruins the life of neighbours and is impossible to manage safely from a security perspective for residents. The neighbours in Burlington street and the surrounding areas would be well advised to fight this proposal tooth and nail as it will mean constant trouble in the neighbouring streets.
I love the architecture of this ‘hotel’ – which was in fact originally a row of terraced houses, St Catherine’s Terrace, built back in the 1850s.
For sure it has been extended and added to, upwards and sideways, over the decades.
And it was first made into a hotel nearly a century ago, back in 1927.
It’s also key to understand that the original building – or buildings – had much more frontage and featured long lawns to their southern side, until a 1960s road widening scheme turned the Shoreham road into what we now call Kingsway.
In the year 2000 or thereabouts, the hotel suffered a further blow when residents parking schemes took away free on-road parking for hotel visitors, and this was then a thriving hotel but with no on-site parking.
It was then proposed that the building would be used for emergency council-funded housing, but planning issues stopped that, and the already run-down hotel instead became a backpackers hostel, with dormitory accommodation for budget travellers.
The ‘Smart Sea View Hotel Brighton’, was in denial of its actual Hove address. The Trip Advisor reviews make for interesting reading.
Covid brought the end of the backpacker trade, and then came the renewed plan for the use of this address as a council-funded hostel for the homeless and disadvantaged.
The tragedy is that this wonderful old building, which still holds historical architectural gems from the individual Victorian houses of its past, is now in a sorry unmodernised state. And new buyers might seek to knock it down – rather than to restore.
The price now asked, probable reflects the value of the plot and not the building.
Let’s hope we don’t just see another accidental ‘fire’ and then the site sits empty while the planning goes through for yet another faceless 8 storey high rise block of flats.