World’s tallest timber hotel planned for Adelaide – First announced in 2022, it was put on hold due to dwindling interest caused by Covid travel restrictions.

Now these plans have been reignited and Adelaide could soon be home to this impressive tower. New plans have added two double penthouses on the original design to stand 35 storeys tall with a total of 324 rooms. The property is set to welcome guests between late 2026 and early 2027.

Designed by Cox Architecture, the hotel is set to be built using cross-laminated timber (CLT) from renewable plantation timber, with a green steel core. Construction is scheduled to begin later this year, led by Multiplex.

Developer Barrie Harrop was inspired after a friend’s experience in a wooden hotel in Sweden.

“I got one of my friends to go and stay at a wooden hotel in Sweden and I gave him a strange request,” Harrop said. “I said, ‘go to this new hotel, sit in the lobby for half an hour, and ring me back to tell me what people do.”

“It’s a weird request, Barry,” his friend laughed, “But we’ll do it for you.”

“After half an hour, he rang me and said, ‘as they entered the hotel lobby, the first thing they did was walk up to the wood columns and stroked them’.”

“So there will be a real tactile experience as you enter the building and that extends through the hotel.”

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