BOC to divest Grand Oriental Hotel
The GOH building
The Bank of Ceylon (BOC) is gearing to divest the Grand Oriental Hotel (GOH) in a move to augment its capital base, informed sources said.
Sources said that BOC has completed an appraisal of the GOH building, which also comes under a heritage conservation project (See box story). “The next step is to take permission from the Ministry of Public Enterprises and then find a buyer,” a source said.
These developments come on the back of the BOC selling its stake in Mireka Capital Land Ltd which owns Havelock City in a mandate that saw the state owned entity selling its non-strategic holdings. This 40 per cent was based on a decision to increase the bank’s capital. The sale fetched Rs. 3.8 billion for the BOC. The major owners of Mireka, Overseas Realty Ltd, with 60 per cent bought the balance to become the sole owners.
An effort to refurbish GOH was done in 2010 through a newspaper advertisement which sought a management contract deal with a party who can spend for the refurbishment work, but it didn’t take off.
Several key leisure sector focused firms sent their offers of interest to secure the management contract, but most of them dropped the idea due to the high amount of investment needed to completely refurbish the hotel. They also were hesitant as GOH is considered a heritage site and any kind of demolition work to the original structure is not permitted.
The idea to sell GOH has come on the back of hotels such as Grand Hyatt Colombo, owned by Sri Lanka’s biggest insurance company SLIC, along with the Hilton Colombo set to be divested by the government, the majority owner.
| GOH among 50 heritage buildings in Fort | |
| More than 80 per cent of the Colombo Fort consists of heritage buildings which are to be conserved under an urban heritage initiative under the Western Region Megapolis Planning Project (WRMPP). The GOH is among 50 buildings, all over 100 years old and dating back to Dutch and British periods, which come under the project. A consultancy report prepared in June 2016 details out all the areas and locations of these buildings. It says the GOH at Janadhipathi Mawatha was constructed in 1870 and designed by the British Architect R. Smith in the Neo classical Style. At the time it had been one of the most modern hotels in the East with 154 luxury rooms with electric lights and fans in 1875. With a distant view to the harbour, GOH was very popular in late 19th century and early 20th century travellers and guests, as it offered a view of the ocean liners lining up in the port especially during the visits of state dignitaries and British royalty . The report says the WRMPP urban heritage initiative will be implemented in three phases: Phase I will include heritage mapping. Heritage mapping will identify and locate through GPS and digital photographs the heritage buildings and precincts. Through Heritage mapping it is possible to integrate conservation and preservation of heritage into the core of the development of cultural tourism and preserve the cultural resource of heritage as a fundamental asset of long- term tourism development. Phase II will include implementing the Heritage experience. One of the key aspects of preservation of heritage is to enable the community to take ownership of the heritage thereby ensuring it’s preservation through community engagement. Theme events such as food fares, mardi-gras, music concerts, plays etc could happen in designated areas in Fort and Pettah to popularise the Heritage experience. Heritage experience events will be carried out with sponsor partners. Phase III will include the implementation of the conservation guidelines. |