New Hotel for Newlands

It looks like Newlands is going to get another hotel, in the form of a Park Inn by Radisson, if reports from hotel-industry.co.uk are to be believed.

The 122 room hotel will open its doors in early 2014 and will be situated between the railway bridge on Campground Road and the TNS Research Building; conveniently close to Cavendish, the rugby stadium and a mere 6 away from the cricket ground.
It will be a vast improvement on the muddy/dusty (delete as seasonally applicable) car parking area that is there at the moment.

One interesting point from that piece:

This development is a joint venture between Meridian Property Holdings, a Cape Town based developer, Deaf Federation of South Africa (DEAFSA), and the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC). DEAFSA represents some 800 000 hearing disabled members countrywide, and views the development as a key broad-based empowerment initiative in terms of income generating, skills transfer and employment opportunities for its members.

Which sounds (no pun intended) like a great idea too.