Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) is set to construct a AUD$25 million, 90-room hotel adjacent to its popular gallery in Rosetta on the shoreline of Berriedale Bay.
Speaking to HM at Dreamtime 2013 in Melbourne yesterday, Business Events Tasmania CEO, Stuart Nettlefold, revealed that the building application for new hotel and conferencing facilities at MONA had been approved and the project was scheduled for completion in 2016.
The gallery’s owner, David Walsh, pictured, 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 AUD$1,000 a night, so Walsh has decided to make the new hotel affordable for everyone.
“Most hotels seem to emphasise eliteness and I always want to break that down,” Walsh said. “We’ve done the numbers and a MONA hotel would be, I suspect, pretty productive.”
He is considering including Japanese style capsule rooms for as little as AUD$80 per night.