A company seeking to turn a vacant Hamilton building into an hotel has called for the reconsideration of approved plans to redevelop a neighbouring plot.

Ay Ay Holdings Bermuda Ltd, which received planning permission to convert Victoria Hall into a 94-key hotel, launched an appeal against North Cote Ltd’s plans for a four-storey building at 9 Victoria Street, located to the immediate west of the site.

In an appeal letter to Diallo Rabain, the Minister of the Cabinet Office and Digital Innovation, an agent for Ay Ay Holdings said the plans as approved would render the hotel proposal untenable.

It said: “Earlier this year, after 18 months of market research, intelligence gathering, site visits to comparable properties, feasibility studies and consultations with various government ministries and statutory bodies, the hotel development received planning permission.

“The development has subsequently secured its first and most difficult round of project financing, which is on deposit at a local Bermuda bank, and is working on final permit drawings with a number of design consultants and international suppliers.

“The hotel project is on schedule to commence construction in 2026.

“The unfortunate timing of the board’s approval of P0061-25 essentially grants permission to the developers (or future owners) of 9 Victoria Street to effectively block the natural light and ventilation from the majority of the western hotel rooms.

“As mentioned previously, the negative financial impact from the threat of the loss of room inventory will ultimately result in the suspension of plans for the development of our client’s hotel project until a solution is reached that would ensure permanent lighting and ventilation along the western wall of 11 Victoria Street.”

The letter argued that the new building proposed for 9 Victoria Street would block existing and proposed windows at Victoria Hall in conflict with the City of Hamilton Plan 2025.

The documents also raised issue with physical aspects of the design, particularly the proximity of air-conditioning condensers to proposed hotel rooms, and that water tanks at the new building could negatively affect subterranean floors at Victoria Hall.

The letter said that the proposed design was “not without merit” as it would replace a boarded-up vacant property, but argued that the developer should focus on the western side of the lot rather than the shared border.

“The excessively large water tanks adjacent to our client’s existing building are a cause for structural concern, and the location of the a/c condenser units will diminish guest experiences staying in the hotel rooms along the western corridor of the hotel. But most of all, blocked windows render the hotel a non-starter.

“Without windows along the western façade of 11 Victoria Street, more than a quarter of the hotel’s inventory will be lost.

“This 8,182-square-foot reduction in habitable space is significant to the point where the Sankofa House hotel project would no longer be economically feasible and will not be able to proceed.”

The letter calls for the planned office building to be set back from Victoria Hall, or for the plans to be “flipped” so that an anticipated landscaped area can act as a buffer.

The conflict between the two projects was earlier raised in a letter of objection to the 9 Victoria Hall plans by Ay Ay Holdings.

However, the developer responded that planning policies allowed for lawful development up to shared boundaries in urban zones and did not extend protections to “speculative residential conversions”.

The developer added that proposals to “flip” the plans were not practical or supported by policy, arguing that the hotel project’s reliance on boundary-line features did not justify altering a policy-compliant design.