Fragrance Group wins approval for 13-storey Hobart hotel tower

Hobart City Council’s planning committee voted unanimously on Wednesday, 21 October 2026, to approve Fragrance Group’s $16 million, 13-storey extension to the ibis Styles Hobart at 171 Macquarie Street, clearing a tower that replaces the three-storey office building wedged between the hotel and the neighbouring Travelodge, part of which will also be demolished.

Why it matters

The approval adds rooms to an operating hotel rather than a standalone build, since the Singapore-based developer’s tower connects directly into the existing ibis Styles. Councillor Bill Harvey, who moved the approval motion, said he was happy to see more hotel rooms added and did not see any downside to approving the proposal. The project also resolves a parking shortfall the ibis has carried since it opened, and secures a public art commitment for the Macquarie Street frontage in exchange for height above the planning scheme’s limit. Council officers recommended approval, finding the height matched the ibis and sat below the Commonwealth building behind it. A unanimous committee vote is a firmer signal for CBD hotel builders than a lodgement.

The numbers

The tower is 13 storeys and will cost $16 million to build. Its top six floors will hold 36 serviced apartments connecting through to the adjoining ibis, which currently has 225 rooms. The design reaches about eight metres above the site’s height limit, and in exchange Fragrance Group must deliver public art worth at least $160,000 on the Macquarie Street facade, or pay that amount toward an art project elsewhere in the Hobart central business district. The approved building also adds 105 car spaces, addressing a shortfall at the ibis, which currently has only 38 spaces for its 225 rooms. That is about one space for every six rooms today. Once the tower is built, the combined hotel will carry 143 spaces across the ibis and the new serviced apartments. Harvey told the committee the city needs more visitor accommodation, and no councillor voted against the proposal. These are the dimensions and conditions the planning committee signed off on 21 October.

What’s next

The approval clears the planning hurdle, but Pulse Tasmania’s report does not include a construction start date, a builder, or a projected opening, and none of those figures appear here because the record does not state them. The public art condition, cash contribution or on-site artwork, will need to be finalised before the project proceeds to construction sign-off, and the extra 105 car spaces will not materialise until the tower is built and the office block it replaces is demolished. The 36 serviced apartments add to the Hobart CBD’s short-stay capacity on top of its existing hotel stock.

That stock has been building up elsewhere in greater Hobart too. The Tasmanian Planning Commission’s separate approval of Chambroad Australia’s $65m Kangaroo Bay hotel at Bellerive, cleared on 20 October after Clarence council had refused it three years earlier, adds another 155 rooms across the river within days of the Macquarie Street decision. Operators watching Hobart’s short-stay market now have two separate approvals, on two different planning pathways, landing inside the same week.