Group’s biggest hotel, service apartment and shopping mall coming up

0

KUCHING: Miri-based Boulevard group is embarking on its single biggest hotel, service apartment and shopping mall project in Bintulu.

Chief executive officer Don Yew Hoon said the project with gross development value (GDV) of between RM350 million and RM400 million, was expected to be completed in 2015.

He said the proposed hotel would have 500 rooms while the two blocks of apartment suites would house 228 units.

The proposed three-storey shopping mall would cover 300,000 sq ft.

“There is not enough hotel rooms in Bintulu, which is expected to attract RM5 billion to RM7 billion in investments in the next five to seven years” he added in a media briefing here yesterday.

Foreign investments have been pouring in to set up energy-intensive industries, like aluminium smelters, in Samalaju Industrial Park, Bintulu within Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (SCORE).

Yew said hotel and apartment accommodation was in great demand due to the influx of foreign executives to manage the industrial projects.

He said the Imperial Beach Resort in Bintulu, which provided 250 three-room apartment suites and managed by Boulevard group, were fully taken up by mostly foreigners.

In Miri, Yew said the proposed Imperial City Mall being built by Boulevard group would be ready in May, next year.

The new mall, which will house 60 retail shops, will be linked to the Imperial Mall which has 120 retail shops and a hypermarket.

The new mall would also house a roller skating ring.

Yew said the linked-up malls would be Miri’s biggest shopping complex.

The Imperial Mall and hypermarket became operational in 1999.

In Miri, Yew said Boulevard owned the 23-storey four-star Imperial Hotel, which provided 265 rooms and apartment suites.