Business Events Tasmania CEO Stuart Nettlefold yesterday revealed that the building application for new hotel and conferencing facilities at Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) has been approved.
MONA founder and owner David Walsh
Scheduled for completion in 2016, the $25 million, 90-room tourist hotel will be built adjacent to the gallery in Rosetta on the shoreline of Berriedale Bay.
The gallery’s owner, David Walsh, is currently deliberating over two contrasting designs for the new building. One is an ‘aesthetically challenging’ high-rise hotel, which would be the same height as the Wrest Point tower and would bookend Hobart with two similar structures.
The second design would be low-rise, wrapping around the waterfront like the museum and connected to it via a tunnel.
The existing accommodation at the MONA Pavilions is up to $1,000 a night so Walsh has decided to offer lower cost options to make the new hotel affordable for everyone. He is considering including Japanese style capsule rooms for as little as $80 per night.
Walsh said, “Most hotels seem to emphasise eliteness and I always want to break that down. We’ve done the numbers and a MONA hotel would be, I suspect, pretty productive”.
