Whitbread plans to expand its Hub by Premier Inn brand after purchasing the freehold of Victory House in London’s Holborn.
The budget hotel group bought the eight-storey Victory House at 30–34 Kingsway—a former 1920s office building—from a private overseas investor for an undisclosed amount.
The 45,000 sq ft property, which remains occupied until spring 2026, is slated to reopen as a 200-bedroom Hub by Premier Inn in 2028, pending planning approval from Camden Council.
The hotel will overlook Lincoln’s Inn Fields and Covent Garden, although some Hub by Premier Inn locations are known for their windowless, budget-focused rooms.
Whitbread has outlined plans to design each bedroom within the building’s existing floorplates to preserve its original architectural features, while integrating heat-recovery systems and air-source heat pumps in line with the group’s sustainability commitments.
The off-market acquisition brings Whitbread’s development pipeline to nearly 1,000 additional Premier Inn and Hub by Premier Inn rooms.
Over the past year, Whitbread has invested heavily in London, acquiring four former office buildings for conversion into budget hotels, with total expenditures exceeding £100 million. This includes the flagship 690-room Hub on the Strand, adjacent to Trafalgar Square.
Approximately one-fifth of Whitbread’s 85,000 bedrooms are located in London.
Jonathan Langdon, senior acquisition manager for Whitbread, said: “The vision behind Hub by Premier Inn is to offer all the great things about Premier Inn in the most central, accessible and exciting places. Kingsway is one of those stand-out locations being surrounded by London’s best entertainment, restaurants, cultural venues and institutions – somewhere we know our customers will want to stay.
“Investing here matches our network plan and complements our trading and pipeline hotels, neatly ‘bookending’ Covent Garden with our St Martin’s Lane hotel to the west. It also rounds off an especially active year for Whitbread in Central and Inner London where we have made four significant purchases and lease commitments, collectively totalling more than £100m of investment and adding close to 1,000 prime located rooms into our pipeline.”
Launched in 2014 on Saint Martin’s Lane in Covent Garden, the Hub by Premier Inn brand now comprises 18 hotels and more than 3,000 rooms across central London and Edinburgh.
The brand typically offers smaller rooms, providing affordable accommodation in prime city-centre locations.
Whitbread was advised on the transaction by Ingleby Trice, while the vendor was represented by JLL and Savills.
Whitbread owns Premier Inn, which operates 850 budget hotels across the UK and internationally.
