Operator Swire Hotels is set to unveil a 100-bedroom hotel and 42 adjoining serviced apartments in Chengdu, China, this May. The project forms part of the city government’s conservation project to preserve the surrounding heritage buildings, which are integral to the success of a wider mixed-use development. The Temple House will be located within the Chengdu Daci Temple Cultural and Commercial Complex, a joint venture to be developed by Sino-Ocean

The Condado Vanderbilt Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico has reached the completion of the second stage of its revival, including the addition of luxury guestrooms and a spa. The US$200m (€149m, £118m) revitalisation of the five-star property, built in 1919 by Frederick William Vanderbilt, has taken 10 years. The hotel was originally designed by Warren and Wetmore, the architectural firm known for Grand Central Station and the New York

The first Virgin-branded hotel has opened in Chicago’s Loop district in the 26-storey Old Dearborn Bank Building, originally designed by architecture firm Rapp and Rapp. The Art Deco building, a Chicago landmark, has 250 guestrooms, including 40 one-bedroom suites and two Penthouse Suites. There are four restaurants – three of which are scheduled to open between February and April of this year. The hotel’s spa will open in Q2 and

Rockliffe Hall in Darlington is investing approximately £1m in various projects to expand its hospitality and leisure facilities and a portion of those funds will include the creation of a spa garden that will sit adjacent to the existing 13- treatment room wellness centre. The five-star resort, which features 61 bedrooms and two luxury houses, will add a 200sq m (2,153sq ft) spa garden area that will include an infinity

The 67-key Baglioni Hotel London facing Kensington Gardens has completed a full renovation of its spa, designed by Milanese architects Rebosio+Spagnulo. Open to both hotel guests and external clients, the Baglioni Spa offers female and male Turkish baths and three treatment rooms for massages, facial and body treatments, with products from Natura Bissé. Natura Bissé has developed unique signature facial and body treatments for the Baglioni spa, such as a

The 189-residence botanic haven in Al Barari, Dubai, has launched a destination spa within its sustainability-focused residential development. Owned and run by the Zaal family and its company, the residential estate called Al Barari encompasses a gourmet restaurant, health club and what it claims is the region's largest privately-owned plant nursery. Eighty per cent of the 14.2 million sq ft (390,192sq m) development is made up of landscaped gardens, lakes

Bjarke Ingels, head of architecture practice BIG, has been explaining his masterplan for Europa City in a newly-released video. The scheme will be one of the largest leisure developments in Europe over the next five years. Developer, Alliages, will begin construction in 2017 and the city will open in 2020. The development is 16km (10m) from Paris. Ingels says the scheme will combine “authentic, lively, dense urban environments and streetscapes

A hotel that has been constructed inside an old mechanical crane has recently opened in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The crane, situated in a former harbour, was set for demolition when its 50m (164ft) high structure fell into disuse. Since then, the hunk of metal has been transformed into the luxury Hotel Faralda, offering three suites and a hot tub with impressive views of Amsterdam perched near the top of the

The Arizona Biltmore, A Waldorf Astoria Resort, has completed the remodeling and renovation of its 22,000sq ft (2,044sq m) spa facility – part of the multi-million dollar revamp of the property previously known as the Grand Dame of Phoenix. Originally built in 1929, Waldorf Astoria has kept the architectural features designed by Frank Lloyd Wright intact. The 740-bedroom resort’s spa has undergone floor-to-ceiling interior remodeling and is now home to

The Four Seasons Hotel Riyadh at Kingdom Centre has opened its newly renovated men’s spa, designed by GA Design International. Akram Kawasmeh, senior director of spa for Four Seasons in the Middle East and Africa, spoke exclusively to Spa Opportunities – detailing the SAR10m (US$2.7m, €2.3m, £1.8m) refurbishment that started at the end of May 2014 and ended in December 2014. The 274-bedroom hotel occupies 11 floors of the tallest

Carlson Rezidor plans to open a new Radisson Blu branded hotel, complete with a balneotherapy-centric spa, in the French city of Bordeaux – the wine capital city of the world. The 125-bedroom Radisson Blu Hotel & Spa Bordeaux will be built north of the city’s UNESCO-protected centre as part of ‘Les Bassins à Flots’ – a mixed-use complex that is currently the largest real estate development in France: facilitated by

The Six Senses Zil Pasyon resort, located on the private island of Félicité in the Seychelles, is scheduled to open in July 2015 with a Six Senses Spa and a yoga pavilion on the granite boulders that punctuate the shoreline. Designed by Richard Hywel Evans of Studio RHE, the resort will comprise 28 one-bedroom villas, two two-bedroom villas and 17 private residences – all with private pools. Six Senses will

Leela Palaces, Hotels and Resorts has signed a memorandum of understanding with developers Summit Group of Nepal to collaborate on the first of four hotels to be built across the country as part of a development rollout. The five-star Leela Kathmandu – designed by John Gerondolis of Smallwood, Reynolds, Stewart, Stewart & Associates of Atlanta, US – will be the first hotel created by the partners, to capitalise on tourism

French architecture firm Valode & Pistre is set to break ground on what would become Africa’s tallest skyscraper in June 2015. Planned for a yet to be confirmed site in Morocco, the building will be more than 500m (1,640ft) tall and have 114 floors representative of the number of chapters found in the Quran. More than just an incredibly tall tower, the building will also have a luxury shopping area,

Virgin Hotels and owner/developer Lam Group have revealed building designs for their first project together in New York City, expected to open in 2017. VOA Architecture has been appointed as architect and interior designer for the new structure, which includes a street-long high-end retail space, 457 guest rooms, multiple food and beverage outlets – including a rooftop bar – plus an outdoor pool and spa. The spa’s details have not

Dubai developer of integrated communities, Emaar Properties, has opened The Burj Club – an exclusive fitness and wellness retreat in Downtown Dubai, adjacent to the world’s tallest building, Burj Khalifa. The 6,320sq m (62, 028sq ft) five-storey health club comprises a fitness centre, spa, juice bar and rooftop pool. Male and female sectioned gym facilities spread across 590sq m (5,597sq ft). The equipment is all connected to the centre’s ‘mywellness’

Developers are cashing in on the redevelopment of a resort originally built by the Third Reich in the run-up to World War II – part of a Nazi vision for the future of tourism. The project saw blocks of six-storey buildings, stretching 2.8 miles (4.5km), erected on the Baltic Sea and nicknamed the ‘Colossus of Prora’. Construction of the 10,000-key complex slowed during WWII and it was briefly claimed by

The old War Office building in Whitehall, London, has been sold to investment conglomerate Hinduja Group, in partnership with Spanish group Obrascon Huarte Lain Desarrollos, for £300m (US$472m, €378m). Opened in 1906, the War Office was recently sold off by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in a cost cutting move after being declared surplus to the ministry's requirements. Boasting over 1,000 rooms and two and half miles of corridors, it

Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts has five new openings planned around the world for 2015 in Hawaii, Morocco, Korea, the Kingdom of Bahrain and Florida. The first to open, in early 2015, is the Four Seasons Hotel Bahrain Bay – which you can read about here. This property will feature the largest spa in the Four Seasons portfolio. Scheduled to launch on 1 March 2015, the 273-bedroom hotel – designed

Starwood’s Westin Turtle Bay Resort & Spa has opened in the historic Turtle Bay of Balaclava on the north west coast of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. Located 15km (9m) from the island’s leisure hub Grand Baie and 15km (9m) from the capital of Port-Louis, the 190-key resort is spread across 10 hectares (25 acres) of land. The resort’s 1,500sq m (16,146sq ft) Heavenly Spa features 10 treatment rooms, a

Nikki Beach Hotels & Resorts, a division of Nikki Beach Worldwide, plans to open its first Middle Eastern property in Dubai, working alongside local development company Meraas Holding. DSA Architects and interior design firm Gatserelia Design will create the 52,000sq m (560,000sq ft) five-star resort on Pearl Jumeirah – set to open in Q3 of 2015. It will include 117 rooms and suites, 14 beach villas, a separate 1,350sq m

A planning application by Swinton Park for a 2,700sq m (29,063sq ft) country club and spa extension in North Yorkshire, UK, has been approved. The £5.5m (US$8.6m, €7m) project at the estate, which has been owned by the Cunliffe-Lister family since the 1880s, will be designed by Manchester-based architecture firm NJSR. It will involve the restoration of traditional workshops and garden buildings that are adjacent to the Grade II-listed 31-bedroom

JCJ Architecture of San Diego, known for designing large-scale casino hotel complexes, has been selected to plan the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians’ 22-acre (9-hectare) downtown site in Palm Springs, US – to transform it into the tribe’s next hotel entertainment district. It is not yet known how many rooms the new hotel will have or if any expansion to the current spa casino is envisioned, however tribal chair

The Brenners Park Hotel in Baden Baden, Germany – the flagship property of the Oetker Collection – will launch its destination health spa Villa Stéphanie on 15 January 2015. The spa will feature 15 treatment rooms overlooking the Park’s gardens, a 500sq m (5,382sq ft) sauna, kneipping baths, a plunge pool for recovery, a hammam, a ladies spa and sauna, a fitness centre plus physio and spinal treatment facilities. The

Work has started on South Korea’s first integrated resort – Paradise City in Incheon – which is scheduled open next to Incheon International Airport in the first half of 2017. A number of the industry’s leading architecture and design practices have been working on the US$1.7bn (€1.4bn, £1.1bn) casino, hotel, spa and theme park project, including WATG, GA Design International, Hirsch Bedner Associates, Hawkins Brown, Lifescapes International and Gansam Architects.

The Miami Beach EDITION – a collaboration between entrepreneur Ian Schrager and operator Marriott International – has launched in the thriving Florida city. Located on a 3.5-acre (1.4-hectare) enclave stretching from Collins Avenue to the shoreline, the 294-key property and its 28 bungalows are an interlinked complex of structures that have been designed by Schrager to embody a “lifestyle revolution” – blurring the lines between work and play. The resort

Karma Royal Group recently announced the introduction of its first property in the UK – the only hotel on St Martin’s island, part of the Isles of Scilly archipelago off the most westerly point of England. Renowned UK interior designer Nicky Haslam is in charge of fully refurbishing the interiors of the 30-key luxury resort, called Karma St Martin’s, which is nestled on 2.8 hectares of sloping terrain and overlooks