28 February 2016

Making the City of Liverpool Amazing Once Again

Written by Lawrence Kenwright

Featured Liverpool apartments, Liverpool Development, Liverpool Heritage, Liverpool homes, Liverpool Hotel, Liverpool hotels 5 Comments

The Rise of Signature Living

I would like to introduce the reasons why I chose to create Signature Living. The city of Liverpool is amazing for two distinct reasons. Firstly, and most importantly, is the warmth and friendly persona that resonates from our residents, unlike our capital of London. At Signature Living, we love to embrace our guests, providing them with the warm welcome Liverpudlians are well-known for.

Secondly, we have a huge array of stunning buildings that have been passed onto us by our forefathers. We must ensure they are brought back to life, and if that means they become a hotel, so be it. After all, we all know the day of the grant have long since passed; our goal should be ensuring they survive another 100 years.

We have been gifted with a phenomenon called Facebook, which allows us to push our messages to support who and what we are. We have to ensure we all work together to tell the world that our city is, in fact, a bucket list city. A city people just have to see and experience, before the bucket gets kicked.

Please help Liverpool and share all the articles that support our amazing city – a city that is undoubtedly the friendliest in the world.

The Start of Signature Living

Now, it’s time to tell you a little about Signature Living. My business career started at the tender age of just 23 years old. I did not have a family who had experience in this field, and that was very evident in my early days. Without this back-of-house knowledge, it would take me many years until I finally gained the guile I needed to flourish in this arena.

By the age of 27, I had built up a chain of 32 stores with a combined turnover of £11 million pounds and a staff of 450 people. This immediate success was, without a doubt, the route to my downfall. The old adage of “you have to taste the bitter to appreciate the sweet” could never be more apt than in my experience. Going broke to me was like being punched in the sternum every single day. I do believe the failures I have had have rendered me a much more grounded person. My goals have been re-aligned to the greater good and not just about chasing the elusive buck.

As in most businesses, they all look so drastically different to your initial desires, and Katie and I were certainly no different. I had just lost pretty much everything I owned in the crash of 2006/7. All-in-all, I was in a place that shattered my confidence, which hit me more psychologically than it did through my pocket. The figure I lost was more in the region of £4 million pounds, and if you say it fast enough, I won’t twitch. The issue for me was to regain my confidence that I had clearly lost. I could no longer think without question. I found myself penniless, with my instinct cast aside like an unwanted crisp packet, but what I did have was a very strong desire to not be that guy.

I always knew my comfort zone was triggered when I was designing rooms. I think that is half the battle. The people who succeed in life always love what they do and, in knowing that, they will see work as a hobby, becoming amazing without breaking their stride.

Here I was, 40 years of age, walking away from the industry that given me so much, which was owning a cluster of retail stores, to follow a hunch that there was a huge gap in the hotel market, left wide open by very large hotel groups that had not changed their format in over 100 years.

Facebook was becoming stronger day-by-day and, dare I say it, Facebook actually helps to bring large groups together. Were all the stars aligned or did I just see an amazing opportunity?

Thankfully Katie, who is a force in her own right, hugely supportive and brandishes a very sharp intellect, allowed me to run riot with our finances, with the sole desire to gain back what I had lost. At times, she blindly went against her instinct to hold tight until there was light at the end of the tunnel – but the tunnel was long and I wanted to expand whilst there was blood on the streets. The year was 2008 and we were in the deepest recession the world has even known.

This may sound a tad opportunist, but you should always buy while the masses are licking their wounds.

GDV £2.2 million

Our first apartment was, and still is to this day, the seventh love of my life, after my wife and five amazing children. The name of the apartment is Fortune – Fortune favours the brave. I named it so due to the fact it was the start of my fighting back against the run of play. I lovingly designed this apartment to be, what I believe to be, the best in the city at the time. I will never forget the day, as we purchased this accommodation back from the liquidators, the day before our wedding – this really was a dawn of a new era. As time went on, over a two year period, we managed to purchase all 12 apartments, which was the entire block, at a huge discount to the initial selling prices set before the crash. This allowed Katie and I to rename the building to Signature Living, and so the journey began.

Watch the video of our Victoria Street apartments:

Mathew Street

My path came across two of Liverpool’s amazing businessmen, who saw what I was doing and they gave me a chance. They did not see my failure as a risk. On the contrary, they felt my desire to get back what I had lost, fuelled by my failure and they backed me, without question. They ultimately knew my past would galvanise my future, so I was now armed with not only their knowledge, but also their investment.

They gave me a property that they owned to refurbish and operate as our second development, which was 2×16 bed accommodations on Mathew Street. The date was September 2010 and the steam train was starting to roll.

The Masonic, Bold Street

Thankfully, we acquitted ourselves admirably with the development of Mathew Street in an exemplary manner. Due to this, my two new benefactors wished to give me yet another one of their buildings, and I was getting well into the groove of developing sites that had not been used for many years. I was now in a position that gave me the support I needed, helping bridge the gap that was clearly there. Having this on tap was of huge importance to me.

The third development site was on Bold Street, which housed a 12 bed, 16 bed, 20 bed and 30 bed party apartments. This site was really the beginning for us and set the tone for Signature Living as a party apartment market leader, as we had created a site primarily about groups, with a concierge service that was never heard of in our city. It was soon sold out for 9 months, and I will always be eternally grateful to the two businessmen who I now call my friends.

Here is a video of our Masonic apartments:

Signature Living Hotel

GDV £4 million

Our fourth development was our first venture out on our own. It had been gifted to Katie and I, and was once known as the Print Hotel. This hotel had closed down after a brief opening of just 6 months, with debts of more than £7 million pounds. The banks were still very negative over any debt-related borrowings, so I decided to take the biggest risk of my entire business career and purchase a hotel that had not been in use for several years.

My very low bid to purchase this hotel had now been accepted, which equated to £825k. All I had to do was give my 10% deposit with a long completion of four months, and then attempt to raise the remaining 740k. Quite a tall order when you consider that, in the financial world, they treat anyone who has gone broke with Teflon gloves. I decided to try my hand at bringing in some investors from Singapore. After all, what could I lose apart from my initial deposit of £82k, which was everything I had at the time, by the way. To cut a very long, arduous story short, I got there by the skin of my teeth. Our money literally dropped in from 19 separate investors, who had purchased a hotel room each on the very last day I had to complete. Clearly lady luck was firmly on my side.

To ensure our hotel would be fully booked, I made a calculated risk to open the hotel for Aintree Races. The pressure was immense due to the extended completion date to purchase the hotel. We therefore had to turn this 12 room hotel into 19 serviced apartments, which meant we had to build seven apartments, add 12 kitchen and seven bathrooms, plus re-design a bar, club and a restaurant in the timescale of just 6 weeks.

I worked 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 6 weeks, losing over 2 stone in weight. I told Katie not to speak to me at all over that period. I think she was quite happy to run along with what I needed, as I will accept I am a nightmare when I have a flag in the sand. When the last couple of days came to a close, we had that much to do that I did not go to sleep for 48 hours.

We made it. The hotel was open and Katie and I had our first genuine hotel. At this point, we were both in a state of shock. We realised that the recession, as severe as it was, could actually be good the position we were in. The cause of our demise bear the fruits of our labour. How else could we afford to purchase a hotel like this in the centre of Liverpool. Thankfully, our hotel was a runaway success.

Once I had put my weight back on, and the memory of my sleepless nights had grew dim, our newly formed hotel was pretty much fully booked. It was clear to me that my life was becoming far too comfortable. Expansion was, yet again, at the forefront of my mind.

Here are two videos of our Signature Living Hotel:

30 James Street

GDV £10 million

In business, the path you choose needs to be allowed to meander, and that is exactly what transpired when we acquired 30 James Street.

Liverpool has an amazing building called The Bank of England, which sits very proudly on one of Liverpool’s best known streets. Sadly, the owner has sat on this building for a number of years, with no desire to develop. When I learn of his assets, my attention was diverted to a building known as Albion House; a building that had not been occupied fully for over 30 years, and its last tenant was actually a drug rehabilitation centre.

Watch the video of how we found Albion House and transformed it into 30 James Street:

After watching this video, you can see why the building was about to be put on the heritage endangered buildings listing. This old lady was once the vision of one of Liverpool’s most well-known businessmen. The building was construction in 1896, and was the tallest building in the city at the time. Sadly, this heritage site, under the guise of the last owner, had been allowed to let her sit behind our world renowned Three Graces, wearing her once stunning attired only to fall into disrepair, all battered and torn.

My initial desire was to call the building 30 James Street, which it was called by its first owner. 30 James Street, the very building to which the Titanic liner was registered, is without any about the home of Titanic. This represented a huge leap of faith – not only on Katie’s behalf with regard to my skill set in undertaking the project, but also in the fact that Liverpool was witnessing a huge increase in the amount of hotel rooms being developed at that time. I was in a position of being caught in the headlights. I became infatuated with the thought of being the custodian of such an iconic building. What do they say: love is blind. Well, in this case, that was true. With a cost to purchase of £1.6 million pounds, and a refurbishment cost of £7 million, this was to be stretching, not only to my finances and everyone I knew, but I felt that due to the building’s heritage status, and the ridiculous time scales I squeezed in, this was to be another time of sleepless nights and significant loss of weight, but without any doubt a worthy task.

As in all our developments, we complete them in just 50% of the allotted timescale set by a Quantity Surveyor. This is truly an amazing stat as 95% of all sites go over their budget. This provides a very quick return on investment to our investors.

As in our last hotel opening, we purchased 30 James Street at the end of February 2014. We part opened 30 James Street in April of that year. Our aspiration was to set our goals quite high. We hoped we would hit a turnover of £3.5 million pounds in our first full year, and I am delighted to report that we will hit the astonishing figures of £6 million pounds, with occupancy levels of 92%.

Not bad when you consider that any new hotel will take 18 months to reach its occupancy maturity and, in Liverpool’s case, maturity is deemed at 75%. Our aim is to plateau at 97%.

Here is a video of how it looks today:

The Shankly Hotel – Complete June 2016

GDV £22 million

Our latest hotel has been a collaboration between the Shankly family and Signature Living. This hotel has been designed to keep alive Liverpool’s best loved manager, and I do believe we have achieved our goal by re-introducing all of the great stories about Bill Shankly in relation to our wonderful city.

We are proud to say that this hotel not only has stories from the past, but the Shankly family are now creating their own piece of history, as they have active roles in the building, and Signature Living is very proud to call them our partners.

The building will have a GDV of £22 million pounds – making it the largest and most costly to date.

Not only does this building house The Shankly Hotel, but it also has 65 Signature Living apartments with two wedding venues, a swimming pool on the roof with unencumbered views of the city, complemented with an eight thousand square foot rooftop garden – and what garden would be complete without a rooftop pool? We will also have a 16,000 square foot gym, 115 space car park, two restaurants and a 220 foot slide that cascades down the rear of the building.

Each room also has its own Shankly story embedded into its ceiling.

Here is a video of the Shankly Hotel:

Daniel House – 190 apartments in Liverpool – Complete April 2016

GDV £14 million – £36 million confirmed

Old Hall Street – 115 apartments in Liverpool – Complete December 2016

Old Hall Street, Liverpool, apartments and serviced apartments

Old Hall Street, Liverpool 115 apartments, complete December 2016

GDV £18 million – £54 million confirmed

West Africa House – 42 apartments in Liverpool – complete December 2016

GDV £6 million – £60 million confirmed

Arthouse Square – 72 apartments in Liverpool – Complete April 2016

GDV £17 million – £77 million confirmed

The Expansion of Signature Living

Tithbarn street, Liverpool 120 apartments

GDV £33 million – £110 million confirmed

Liverpool Road, Manchester

GDV £10 million – £120 million confirmed