Chapter 22
22
‘OK,’ I say to Abby once we’re ensconced in the tea room I scouted out for this meeting during one of my walks. ‘Before we start, I’ve made some assumptions. The first is that you want the quickest return on your investment based on the lowest outlay.’
‘Not quite the lowest outlay,’ she corrects. ‘We’re not a “pile ’em high, sell ’em cheap” construction firm. Our customers expect quality.’
‘But you still want the best return on your investment, right?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘So if I were to tell you that my idea could get you a much higher rate per square foot than yours, for a lower initial outlay, what would you say?’
‘I’d say bring it on. What’s the idea?’
‘Reopen it as a hotel.’
Her face falls. ‘Beatrice—’ she begins.
‘Hang on. Hear me out,’ I interrupt. ‘You’re going to tell me that it’s not viable as a hotel because it wasn’t viable before. You’re probably also going to tell me that you’re not in the business of hotels. Am I right?’
She sighs. ‘Yes, on both counts.’
‘But this is where I come in. Because I am in the business of hotels, and I’m confident that there is a market that we can tap into. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that the council has a sudden change of heart and approves your planning application. As well as the repairs and redecoration, you’re going to have to make some fairly big changes to the interior layout. I imagine that’s expensive.’
‘It’s not cheap, but cheaper than starting from scratch.’
‘Fair point. But if you leave it as a hotel, you don’t have to make those expensive changes. You just have to bring it back up to standard. Now, which do you think makes more money per square foot per night. An apartment or a hotel room?’
‘It’s not as simple as that, from our perspective. I’m sure a hotel room is more profitable on a rental basis, but we’re not planning to rent out these apartments. We sell them and walk away. The cash goes into our next development.’
‘Let me put it a different way then. At the moment, the council is not going to let you do anything with the building, so your cash is tied up until it either falls down or they change their minds. We’re not talking about pocket money here. I’m giving you the opportunity to press ahead with a plan that they can’t turn down, and start getting your money back out in a much shorter time frame.’
She bites into her carrot cake and chews thoughtfully, taking a sip of tea to wash it down. I’m desperate to tell her all the other good things about my plan, but I force myself to stay silent. She needs a moment to absorb what she’s heard so far. Given that she’s no longer openly shooting me down, I must have made some impact.
‘What makes you think it’s viable as a hotel?’ she asks eventually. ‘If a big company like BudgetWise couldn’t make it work, that’s a red flag, don’t you think?’
‘They had the wrong model,’ I tell her simply. ‘They were catering to the lower end of the market and there are already lots of players in that area who’ve been here for much longer than them. Also, Margate just isn’t a chain hotel sort of place. People who come here want to immerse themselves in its unique culture, and a chain hotel doesn’t fit with that at all. What people want is boutique. That’s what The Mermaid was when it was successful, and that’s what it should be now.’
‘The Mermaid?’
‘That’s what it was called. There’s still a slab with the name at the top of the building. Here, let me show you something.’ I spread out some of the pictures I’ve printed off from my shots of Reginald’s wedding album on the table. Once again, I let silence fall as she studies them.
‘Where did you get these?’ she asks as she leafs through them.
‘I met a guy who used to be the doorman there. It was hotel policy to provide a wedding reception free of charge to any members of staff who got married.’
‘What a lovely idea. It looks so different, doesn’t it. So…’ She tails off.
‘Glamorous?’ I offer.
‘That’s it. It’s almost impossible to believe it’s the same building.’
‘But it is. Apart from whatever they’ve done to the staircase, it’s structurally identical. It just needs its mojo back.’
‘You have no idea how much I wish that were true, but it’s more complicated than that.’ Abby’s face is no longer wreathed in nostalgia. Business Abby is back in the room and I can sense she’s losing interest. ‘You can’t just recreate, when was this?’
‘1953.’
‘Exactly. You can’t just recreate 1953 and expect it to work now because it did then.’
‘I’m not suggesting that. We need a thoroughly modern USP, but I think I have it.’
‘Go on.’
‘Point one. Don’t relaunch as a budget hotel. Go for the top end of the market.’
‘I’m not sure Margate is a “top end of the market” kind of town.’
‘I disagree. There’s currently one four-star hotel here and I checked; it’s fully booked months in advance.’
‘Which shows that the market is already catered for. Surely that would be the same mistake as launching a budget brand. We’d just be outclassed by the competition.’
‘I don’t think we would, but that’s not the point. The point is that the advance bookings for the other hotel show us that there’s untapped demand for a quality product. Demand we could take advantage of.’
‘How?’
‘That comes back to the USP,’ I tell her, relieved that I’ve managed to get her back on the hook. I collect up the photos and spread out the come for/stay for list that I’ve typed out.
‘Come for the food?’ She sounds doubtful.
‘Yes. Food is a big theme here in Margate, along with art and some of the other things I’ve listed in the “stay for” column. What we need is an exceptional offering from a talented chef to tempt the foodie market.’
‘Do you have someone specific in mind?’
‘As a matter of fact, I do.’
‘It’s not Rosa from the show, is it? I mean, her food is good but I don’t imagine she’d react well to the British climate.’
‘It’s not her. It’s a guy I worked with at my previous job.’
‘Where’s he working now?’
‘He’s at a restaurant in Glasgow at the moment.’
‘Hmm. When someone says “foodie destination”, Glasgow is hardly the first place to trip off the tongue.’
‘He’s good, I promise.’
‘I see. And he’s on board with this plan, is he?’
‘I haven’t mentioned it to him, actually.’
‘Why not? If he’s the kingpin of your business plan, the whole thing kind of goes up in smoke if he says no, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes, but equally it wouldn’t really have been fair to get his hopes up if you were going to turn me down flat.’
She takes another bite of her carrot cake, and I can practically hear her brain whirring as she chews.
‘How much longer are you planning to stay in Margate?’ she asks eventually.
‘I’ve booked the apartment for another week. I was supposed to be applying for jobs this week but I’ve been a bit busy with this, so I’ve pushed my other plans back.’
‘Let’s just say, and this is absolutely theoretical, that I went for this. It’s going to take a while to get the building up to standard. What are you going to do while the building works are going on?’
‘I’d want to be onsite,’ I tell her firmly. ‘I have a vision for this building, so I’d want to be very hands-on.’
She looks wary. ‘When you say “vision”…’
‘You can’t take a building like that and just turn it into a bland corporate hotel, with identikit rooms all painted the same colour. It needs personality and period features. It needs the right fittings, the right furniture. Not repro crap; the punters will spot that immediately.’
‘Sounds expensive.’
‘Not necessarily. I mean, there will be some areas where we have to spend a bit of money, but you can pick up period decorations from auctions and stuff. It’ll still come in at a fraction of the cost of converting it to flats, I reckon.’
‘Do you have project management experience?’
‘No,’ I admit.
‘But the role you’ve just described to me, being onsite and supervising the renovations, that’s project management. I’d have to be mad to give you that level of responsibility when you don’t have any experience.’
‘I may not have project management experience but, as I told you, I know this industry. I know what works and what doesn’t. If you bring in someone who knows how to manage a project but doesn’t share the vision, you’ll end up with something soulless.’
Abby drains her tea before picking her phone out of her bag and dialling a number.
‘Ella, it’s me,’ she says into the handset. ‘What’s your diary looking like tomorrow?’
She frowns as she listens to the answer. ‘Fine. Can you reschedule that and come to the Margate site instead? Bring Noah and John too. Oh, and can you pick up a pair of boots for me please? Size…’ She looks at me expectantly.
‘Five,’ I tell her.
‘Size five,’ she repeats into the phone. ‘Yes, there’s a plan, but I want your input to see if it’s viable or not. Great. I’ll see you here at ten.’
She disconnects the call and fixes her eyes on mine. I’m sure she’s at least a year younger than me, but she’s exuding the kind of authority you’d normally see in someone much older.
‘I’m not promising anything,’ she says firmly. ‘But I’m prepared to look into this a little further. Ella is my senior project manager in the south of England. She knows her stuff and I trust her implicitly. Noah is her fiancé and also one of my site managers – there’s almost nothing he doesn’t know about buildings – and John will never forgive me if I don’t let him come too. We’ll see you onsite at ten tomorrow. Don’t be late.’
With that, she gathers her belongings together and strides out of the café in the direction of her car, leaving me open mouthed.