£1m refurbishment at Ballycastle’s Marine

The Marine Hotel in Ballycastle is to be refurbished and extended in a £1m scheme which should be complete in time for the summer season next year.

A planning application has just been submitted for the work, which will include the addition of 12 new bedrooms at the venue as well as a new honeymoon suite with sea views; a mini-spa and relaxation area with a hot tub; an indoor play area for children; a sushi bar; a new events space and improvements to the venue’s coffee lounge.

The 33-bedroom hotel is a central feature of the seafront in the busy Glens’ resort town. Its current owners, business partners, Claire Hunter and Colum McLornan, bought the hotel out of receivership in March 2013, by which stage it had been closed for more than three years. The pair immediately spent £700,000 to transform the venue and it has since resumed its role at the heart of the busy tourist town.

Belfast-based Ado – the design company behind Belfast’s Bullitt hotel – has been appointed to carry-out the work in Ballycastle.

Once the refurbishments are complete, Claire and Colum hope to be able to attract additional business from Scotland using the daily high-speed service from Campbeltown and Port Ellen:

“This will enable the hotel to grow golf and corporate business from Scotland, saving customers tht need to fly to Belfast and travel up by bus to the north coast,” Claire told LCN this month.

And Colum McLornan says that the last 18 months have seen “huge demand” for bedrooms on the north coast from self-drive tourists and groups from the USA and China:

“Together with the demand for weddings, activity breaks and team-building events, we have decided to expand the hotel, bringing us to 45 bedrooms to meet the growing demand,” he adds.

Colum and Claire were in the news here in August 2015 when they narrowly missed out on £60,000 of investment from Deborah Meaden on the reality TV show, Dragons’ Den. The couple had wanted the money for a food-related venture called Rule of Crumb.