Perri Projects Appoints Ovolo for $50m South Melbourne Designer Hotel

Ovolo  South Melbourne 

Australian developer, Perri Projects, has appointed international award-winning designer hotel owner operator, Ovolo, as hotel manager for its $50 million South Melbourne project, expected to open in 2020.

Located at 183-199 Moray Street, the 100 room, Upper Upscale, six-storey designer hotel, will bring Ovolo’s signature ‘effortless living’ ethos to one of Melbourne’s most iconic inner-city suburbs.Ovolo’s appointment represents a significant milestone for the project, which has received planning approval, with construction anticipated to commence in the third quarter of 2019.

David Scalzo, Managing Director of Perri Projects, said Ovolo’s international track-record for delivering innovative, design-led destination hotel concepts that emphasise lifestyle aligned with Perri Projects’ vision for the site.

“We are delighted to partner with Ovolo to realise our original vision for this site as a mixed-use lifestyle precinct featuring destination bars and restaurants, as well as leisure, event and function facilities,” he said.

“Ovolo hotels are internationally renowned for their high-end, high-energy designs that blend form and function to ensure each hotel delivers a unique experience for guests and visitors. Ovolo is well established and revered, yet agile and bold enough to challenge convention and break the mould on new sites, ensuring that each design complements and enhances the location of their hotels.”

With Ovolo owning and operating 10 hotels across Australia and Hong Kong, its appointment as hotel manager for Perri Project’s South Melbourne site represents the independent hospitality group’s first solely hotel management agreement.

Girish Jhunjhnuwala, Ovolo CEO and Founder, said Ovolo in South Melbourne represented a new phase of growth for the company, made possible through a shared vision with Perri Projects.

“The Hotel Management Agreement with Perri Projects represents a natural evolution for our business as we continually look to expand our offering in new markets,” he said. “While we each bring our respective expertise in property development and hospitality management to this project, this partnership was forged through our mutual affinity for delivering truly unique projects and a shared vision for the South Melbourne site,” he said.

Dave Baswal, COO & CFO of Ovolo Australia, said he was confident Ovolo’s offering in South Melbourne would be well-received by the growing pool of higher-end established housing and major commercial office buildings.

“Ovolo is a proud owner and operator of hotels and this HMA will be the start of a new chapter in order to take our disruptive lifestyle designer hotel collection to the next level in Australia and internationally,” Mr Baswal said. “Ovolo is committed to ensuring our guests can expect the unexpected from us and like all our sites, Ovolo in South Melbourne will stand alone from a design perspective, but the experience will be unmistakeably Ovolo.

“The underlying demographic of South Melbourne has been evolving steadily as creative industries in particular look to take advantage of the central location and raw industrial edge the suburb has to offer,” Baswal continued. “But while the suburb is on the rise with those in the know, local hospitality amenity has not kept pace with this change, and we believe Ovolo South Melbourne with its bars, restaurants and even a roof-top function and events space will be uniquely placed to provide a focal point for those local communities.”