Treehouse Hotel London, which opened in November 2019

Designed in collaboration with 93ft, Treehouse Hotel Manchester will celebrate sustainability by incorporating roof gardens, green walls and beehives producing fresh honey.

The innovative Treehouse Hotels concept is on its way to a prominent spot in Manchester city centre.

Reimagining the Renaissance Hotels site

SH Hotels & Resorts has outlined plans to create a 216-room property under the Treehouse Hotels flag. Treehouse Hotel Manchester, owned by an affiliate of Starwood Capital Group, is being developed in partnership with local company Property Alliance Group, marking the first phase of a landmark £200m regeneration of the former Renaissance Hotels site on Deansgate.

Treehouse Hotels’ philosophy centres around the joy of youth, freedom, fun, dreams and friends, inviting guests to leave the everyday behind and enter a world of imagination. It aims to reproduce ‘the wondrous, childhood feeling of climbing into a treehouse and making up your own rules’, according to SH Hotels & Resorts, which also promised that the Manchester outpost will be ‘fun, fresh and fabulous – inspired by life’s joys’.

An organic design aesthetic

The 216-room hotel, designed in collaboration with Sheffield-based studio 93ft, will feature an organic aesthetic that emphasises comfort and playfulness, encouraging visitors to relax and enjoy themselves. And the building’s façade will showcase murals by local artists.

“I’m really excited to launch our second Treehouse Hotel in the UK,” said Starwood Capital Group chairman and CEO Barry Sternlicht. “Manchester is as much a destination for travellers as a gathering place for its energetic local community.

“Our Treehouse will introduce a new execution of fun and witty, and provide an imaginative hospitality experience. As a sustainable brand, we will reuse and repurpose the existing building. We are thrilled to set roots in the city of Manchester.”

Treehouse Hotel Manchester will make extensive use of reclaimed and recycled materials across both the building itself and the furniture within. The property will also promote biophilic principles by including roof gardens, green walls, a kitchen garden harvesting rainwater and beehives on the roof producing fresh honey.

Unique dining experiences

Details about the F&B programme are fairly limited at this stage, but SH Hotels & Resorts has indicated that the hotel will introduce a number of unique new dining experiences to the area, including a top-floor restaurant and bar with sweeping city views, and a rooftop venue.

Upon entering the property, guests will pass beneath a treehouse canopy and continue down a path filled with dappled light and the scent of pitch pine, suggestive of entering a secret forest. There’ll also be hopscotch carpets, stepping stones in lift lobbies and space hoppers in the hotel’s gym, along with ‘an invitation for visitors to carve their stories into a central living wooden art piece that will grow over time’.