Colonial architecture for new Menteng hotel

JAKARTA (JP): A new three-star hotel in the elite Menteng residential district in Central Jakarta is to be built to resemble a house from colonial times.

The project, on a 2,553-square-meter plot on Jl. Probolinggo, will be jointly undertaken by city-owned developer PT Pulo Mas Jaya and the Sahid Jaya Group, a leading Indonesian hotel chain.

The latter will also manage the facility.

"I believe that the Sahid Jaya Group is a reliable partner because of its experience in the hotel business," Pulo Mas Jaya President Iman Sunario told The Jakarta Post.

The Sahid Jaya Group owns and manages 24 hotels in Indonesia and one each in Singapore and Hong Kong.

The 121-room hotel will have nine stories and two basement floors.

Jakarta Governor Surjadi Soedirdja, who inaugurated the project's ground-breaking ceremony yesterday, said the hotel would complement the spatial plan for Menteng, where colonial houses coexisted with modern structures.

"Jakarta should not have only modern hotels, but also classically-design ones to remind people of the history of Batavia," he said, referring to the name of Jakarta during the Dutch colonial era.

Sahid Jaya Group Vice President Yanti Sukamdani Hardjoprakoso said the Rp 27 billion ($10.8 million) project will be completed in 18 months and the hotel would be fully operation in February 1999.

"We will probably name the hotel as Sahid Menteng," Yanti said.

Pulo Mas Jaya will hold 70 percent of the shares in the project and Sahid the rest, she said.

Construction was originally scheduled to start in June but it was delayed to allow 24 families who had lived in the apartment building on the site to find new homes.

The old building was torn down last month. (07)