ACE Hotel & Swim Club Athens: The new 5-star hotel on the Athens Riviera opens in September

The first ACE Hotel will open in Glyfada in the second half of September.

The 5-star ACE Hotel & Swim Club Athens, located in the former Fenix ​​hotel in the centre of Glyfada, on Artemisiou Street behind the beach, marks the reappearance of the ACE chain on European soil. The chain has been present in the hotel industry for 25 years.

It also marks Brook Lane Capital's first substantive investment venture in the hospitality industry, in collaboration with an international name. The old Fenix ​​Hotel quietly came into Brook Lane ownership in July 2021.

Brook Lane, which started investing in Greek real estate as early as 2017 with purchases of hundreds of millions of euros in commercial real estate (mainly offices and shops), will, in the future, have a strong footprint in the southern suburbs of Athens.

In addition to investing in the former Fenix, which was one of the largest hotels in the area with a capacity of 120 rooms and suites, the investment company led by fund manager Aziz Francis secured a position in the Ellinikon project with a planned mixed-use tower which will include residential and 5-star hospitality uses worth half a billion euros.

In the summer, Brook Lane also announced the purchase from LAMDA of a plot of land within Ellinikon for future, mainly residential, development.

As for now, the "ACE Hotel & Swim Club Athens" is set to open in September under the American brand of ACE Hotels, which returns to Europe via Greece after leaving London in 2020.

The hotel, from the old, unused units of the southern suburbs with a construction date back to the 70s, is now getting a second chance and, in fact, at a favourable moment both for the tourism of Athens, which is experiencing its best year this year, and especially for the Athenian Riviera, which is at the centre of investment interest with luxury, multi-star projects, recovering the lost glory of the 60s and 70s.

It is noted that based on the latest assessment of the property (before the reconstruction), the hotel's value was 18.67 million euros at the end of 2022, up from 15.07 million euros in 2021.

The ACE Hotel Group was created in 1999 and has a presence in the USA, Canada, and Australia. It now places particular emphasis on entertainment and leisure through the "Swim Club," with the debut in Europe being made in Glyfada.

In addition to accommodation, the benefits for the general public include a daily, monthly, quarterly, or even annual pass for swimming in the hotel's two swimming pools, where there will also be dining areas.

The ACE chain, as it defines itself, is a collection of international boutique hotels in Seattle, Palm Springs, New York, Brooklyn, Kyoto, Toronto and now Athens.

The "Swim Club'' brand is expected to be a key point for the group in the coming years. Following the popular "Swim Club'' in Palm Springs, which opened in 2009 and is due for renovation in 2024, more hotels will be added.

In 2020, the chain closed the "Ace Hotel London" in London, leaving Europe, where it is now returning via Athens.

According to the company's staff, the Greek capital is increasingly becoming a destination sought by travellers beyond the Greek islands, with the southern suburbs as well as the centre being the focus.

Stefania Souki is a columnist for New Money. Translated by Paul Antonopoulos.

READ MORE: Symi: A special island of culture.