Premier Inn custom house street

Four sections there now as I passed on the train this morning and the lifting jacks are in place a third of the way up the crane.

Concrete and steel reinforcement bars now extend up to first floor level. Hopefully the core will rise imminently. Progress also now visible at the Easyhotel site.

Update - Sunday 26th Jan

This is a big hotel. It’s bigger than I thought....... I hope the cladding will be attractive......

I reckon it should look quite classy, black is a better cladding choice than white in the local climate and it will provide a point of contrast. I think we've got enough cream and white (generally stained!) render going on in the city centre at the moment.

I reckon it should look quite classy, black is a better cladding choice than white in the local climate and it will provide a point of contrast. I think we've got enough cream and white (generally stained!) render going on in the city centre at the moment.

I don't think black is a better choice in our environs - seagull sh*t anyone? Generally grey/stone colours are most resilient to staining. Dark colours are also rather oppresive on the skyline and I think the bulkiness of this building will make it look quite monolithic.

The best materials I have seen on a building in Cardiff is the Clayton Hotel. It always looks smart whatever the weather and will stand the test of time.

Clayton copied the materials from Sleeperz and you can see it is starting to look quite dirty, Sleeperz was opened in 2008 so roughly 10 years. If you notice most new buildings over 10 years old start to look grubby, it seems the natural lifetime so the Clayton should start showing its age soon.

I really don't like the windows. I don't mind black if it's done well, my fear with this one is it'll look cheap and even more so across the road next to the Clayton which I've always really liked, likewise Sleeperz. That's not because of the colour, the materials just look a good quality to me.

Only time will tell. It'll stand out if it's done badly that's for sure.

I reckon it should look quite classy, black is a better cladding choice than white in the local climate and it will provide a point of contrast. I think we've got enough cream and white (generally stained!) render going on in the city centre at the moment.

I don't think black is a better choice in our environs - seagull sh*t anyone? Generally grey/stone colours are most resilient to staining. Dark colours are also rather oppresive on the skyline and I think the bulkiness of this building will make it look quite monolithic.

I agree with you RC. It could be rescued by having a very high quality cladding but that seems unlikely. The cladding is good on the new one down the Bay so there's a slim chance that this could be ok.