Whitbread PLC, the UK's largest hotel company and owner of Premier Inn, has acquired Victory House at 30–34 Kingsway, WC2, in Central London, in an off‑market deal for an undisclosed sum, strengthening its pipeline for the hub by Premier Inn brand.

The freehold purchase fits Whitbread's network plan for the Covent Garden/Holborn area, placing future guests within a ten‑minute walk of Covent Garden, Lincoln's Inn Fields, the London School of Economics campus and the West End's theatre district.

Subject to planning, Whitbread intends to convert the 1920s, 45,000 sq ft office—currently occupied until spring 2026—into a hub by Premier Inn hotel of around 200 bedrooms. Rooms would be delivered within the existing floorplates while retaining the building's stone façade onto Kingsway. The location offers views over Lincoln's Inn Fields to the east, and Whitbread expects to secure vacant possession in April 2026 when the current lease expires.

The acquisition rounds off an especially active year for Whitbread in Central and Inner London. Since February 2025, the business has bought four former office buildings for conversion into Premier Inn and hub by Premier Inn hotels, with total investment exceeding £100 million. Collectively, these assets—including Victory House—will add close to 1,000 rooms to Whitbread's secured development pipeline. Currently, 19% of Whitbread's 85,000 bedrooms are in London.

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Jonathan Langdon, Senior Acquisition Manager for Whitbread, said: "The vision behind hub by Premier Inn is to offer all the great things about Premier Inn in the most central, accessible and exciting places. Kingsway is one of those stand-out locations being surrounded by London's best entertainment, restaurants, cultural venues and institutions – somewhere we know our customers will want to stay.

"Investing here matches our network plan and complements our trading and pipeline hotels, neatly ‘bookending' Covent Garden with our St Martin's Lane hotel to the west. It also rounds off an especially active year for Whitbread in Central and Inner London where we have made four significant purchases and lease commitments, collectively totalling more than £100 million of investment and adding close to 1,000 prime located rooms into our pipeline.

"We're pleased to have secured the Kingsway location quickly off-market and are excited to begin the planning journey with Camden Council next year, with a goal to bring the location onto our trading network in 2028."

Hub by Premier Inn is designed for high‑value city-centre locations, using compact room formats to deliver attractive long‑term returns while offering affordable stays for guests.

Launched on St Martins Lane in Covent Garden in 2014, the brand now operates eighteen hotels and more than 3,000 bedrooms across Central London and Edinburgh, with four further London sites under construction or in advanced planning, including a flagship 690‑room hub on the Strand next to Trafalgar Square.

Aligned with Whitbread's sustainability strategy, the Kingsway hotel will be all‑electric and powered by renewable energy, with heat recovery systems and air‑source heat pumps incorporated to reduce energy demand.

Whitbread was advised by Ingleby Trice, while the vendor was represented by JLL and Savills. Conversations with Camden Council about converting the eight‑storey building are expected to begin in early 2026, with Whitbread targeting entry into its trading network in 2028.