The new event space and a clutch of additional guestrooms within the 152-year-old building are expected to cost $60 million.
Adelaide Marriott’s general manager, Paul Gallop, said the space with soaring ceilings, ornate architraves and a half dome glass ceiling will also house 10 heritage guestrooms on a mezzanine level, including the two-bedroom Postmaster General’s apartment.
Gallop told micenet the owners of the property had agreed to complete the full restoration of the GPO, including the postal hall, but it might take three years to come to fruition.
Meanwhile the sensitive blend of the historic sandstone building with a new 21st century hotel won praise from business events delegates at the annual Destination South Australia famil in Adelaide last week.
Gallop, who oversaw the pre-opening phase of the newest hotel in Adelaide, was previously a hotelier in Auckland. When he realised the significance of Adelaide’s GPO and its first postmaster general, Sir Charles Todd, he set about researching the narrative for the building and ensuring its accuracy.
“I knew how significant the building was to the people of Adelaide.
“And I come from New Zealand, and in New Zealand we are very cognisant of the connection to land, people and place. And so I wanted to ensure that when I came here and started the hotel, that we understood the history and the people and the connection to the place,” he said.
Todd’s remarkable achievements include completing the Overland Telegraph from Adelaide to Darwin, which then connected Australia to the rest of the world. An artistic representation of the first telegram sent from London appears on the hotel walls at Adelaide Marriott, along with panoramic photographs of all the telegraph stations established between Adelaide and Darwin by Todd.
Gallop said to understand the legacy of Todd you needed to know that he was also a weather forecaster, land surveyor, and a spaceologist – “he was the first person in the world to track the orbit of Venus and he was the first person in the world to take a Daguerreotype photograph of the moon, which is basically taking a photo with no negative, but burning it onto a copper plate with a thin coat of silver” says Gallop.
He says Todd, also an electrical engineer, hand built the GPO clock that still operates today on top of the building.
The 285-room hotel which Gallop describes as “a next-gen Marriott” based on new brand standards, is officially designated the 600th Marriott property in the Asia Pacific, outside of China.
Of the 285 rooms, Gallop said he would currently accept a business events buyout proposal for “140 rooms, maybe 180 at a pinch…but when the postal hall was open a larger room allocation would be possible”.
Commenting on the growth plans for Marriott, he said, “by the end of 2027, we expect the 600 in APEC to reach 1,000”.
“So I tell the story, it took us 97 years to get to 600, but by the end of ’27, we’ll be at 1,000. So you can see the acceleration within the region.”
Asked how many of the new hotels might be in Australia or New Zealand, he replied, “Oh, I think you’ll see probably 10 to 15 more”.
