Sydney Is Getting Australia’s First Ace Hotel

One of the US’s coolest hotel brands is coming to Sydney. Ace Hotels has announced it will open its first Australian outlet in Surry Hills in 2021. In partnership with Melbourne-based development company the Golden Age Group, it will build an 18-storey hotel on Wentworth Avenue with Tyne House as its foundation. It was built in 1916 and has had its original facade maintained.

The hotel will have 264 rooms, a ground-floor lobby bar, a restaurant and cafe, conference facilities, a gym, and a rooftop bar and restaurant.

Ace Hotels – which has locations in cities including New York, Los Angeles, Palm Springs and London – is known for its design-led approach. The group has its own in-house creative and development team, Atelier Ace, which will work with Australian architecture firm Bates Smart (Dinner by Heston, Rockpool Bar & Grill, Spice Temple).

The group was founded in 1999 in Seattle by a group of friends who wanted to open a hotel that catered to the creative class. While vintage-style furnishings and hire bikes are a mainstay of boutique hotels these days, back then those features were radical. And unlike other hotel chains, Ace doesn’t bring a cookie-cutter formula to every new opening – it adapts to, and is inspired by, the city it’s in.

“Traditional five-star hotels are finding it hard to compete with lifestyle-driven hotels, which place a greater emphasis on experience, culture and art,” Golden Age’s founder and managing director Jeff Xu said in a statement. “Cities abroad have been faster to adopt this new trend but Australia is still a young market, and there's a demand for it.”

The company says Ace Hotels chose Surry Hills because it’s known for being a culinary hub and for its cultural life.

Ace isn’t the only one to see the suburb’s potential. It’s become something of a hotspot for boutique hotels; Paramount House Hotel, Little Albion and 57 Hotel have all opened over the past few years.

Ace Hotel Sydney is slated to open in 2021.