Hotel group, Jurys Doyle, has announced an agreement with NI-based property developers McAleer & Rushe to build and lease a new 257-room Jurys Inn in Southampton.

The £18.75m, three star, 12-storey property – to be located at Charlotte Place in the centre of the city and include a restaurant, bar, coffee shop and nearly 9,000sq ft of meeting rooms – will be the focal point of a mixed used office and residential scheme.

Jurys Doyle has entered into a 35 year operating lease on the hotel.

Jurys Doyle chief executive, Pat McCann, said: "We believe Southampton is an excellent location for our Jurys Inn brand. The Southampton Greater Area has the fifth largest catchment population in the UK – amounting to two million people – and has an attractive mix of corporate and leisure business. "

When it opens in 2005, the hotel will bring to 18 the total number of Jurys Inns operating in Ireland and the UK. New Inns will be opening in Glasgow, Chelsea, Leeds, Dublin and Heathrow Airport between September 2003 and the end of 2004.

Elsewhere within the group, agreement has been reached for the sale of Dublin’s 113-room Jurys Tara Hotel as a going concern to Woodmead for EUR14.2m cash.

Commenting on the decision, McCann said that the property "is an excellent hotel with a dedicated team of employees but does not fit into our long-term strategic plan. Having received an attractive offer we decided that it was an appropriate time to sell".

Woodmead is owned by Bernard McNamara and Jerry O’Reilly, who also own the Galway Radisson and Kilkenny Ormonde hotels.