Singapore Billionaire’s UOL Unveils London Hotel, Residential Skyscraper Amid Travel Recovery Hopes

Singapore Billionaire’s UOL Unveils London Hotel, Residential Skyscraper Amid Travel Recovery Hopes

One Bishopsgate Plaza featuring the high-rise tower and Devonshire Row. UOL Group—controlled by banking and real estate billionaire Wee Cho Yaw—has completed the construction of a 43-story hotel and residential tower at the heart of London's financial district, betting on a post-pandemic travel recovery. One Bishopsgate Plaza is an integrated development comprising the 237-room Pan Pacific London hotel on the first 20 floors of the skyscraper, and the Sky Residences from the 21st to the 41st level. The property—which also includes Devonshire Row, a two-story heritage building of offices and retail shops—is strategically located next to the Liverpool Street station, providing quick access to Canary Wharf as well as the London City and Heathrow airports. While the hospitality industry has been hit hard by travel restrictions that governments around the world enforced to curb the spread of Covid-19, increasing vaccination rates are expected to lead to the gradual reopening of international borders. "The opening of the hotel will benefit from regional and domestic travel following the reopening of borders to allow safe travel," Choe Peng Sum, CEO of UOL unit Pan Pacific Hotels Group, said in a statement on Wednesday. The hotel—Pan Pacific's first in the U. K.—offers five levels