• Asset: 178 St Georges Terrace, Perth CBD, formerly Singapore Airlines House
• New use: Holiday Inn Express Perth City Centre
• Rooms: 103
• Operator: IHG Hotels & Resorts
• Owner and developer: SKS Group
• Reported project value: about $60 million
• Building: nine levels, roughly 3,207 sqm, on a 560 sqm site with 10 basement car bays
• Purchase price: $9.5 million, reported in January 2026
• Signed: 26 October 2026 at InterContinental Perth City Centre, with Lord Mayor Bruce Reynolds in attendance
• Opening date: not yet announced

The building at 178 St Georges Terrace was completed around 60 years ago and refurbished in the 1990s. For years it carried the Singapore Airlines name. The airline owned it until 2007, when it was sold as part of a wider portfolio of the carrier's Australian offices.

By 2025 the building was empty. It came to market vacant through JLL, pitched on its development upside for either commercial or residential use. About six months later, in January 2026, SKS Group bought it for $9.5 million. That works out at roughly $2,960 per square metre of building area, a price that reflects an older, smaller office asset at the western end of the Terrace rather than a prime tower.

The physical shape of the building helps explain the hotel play. It has a side core and floorplates of about 350 sqm. That is small and awkward for a modern office tenant chasing large, open floors. For a hotel it is far more workable, because a side-core plate of that size lends itself to a simple corridor of rooms on each level.

IHG says Holiday Inn Express Perth City Centre will use the brand's latest Generation 5 design, built around flexible public spaces and smart in-room technology. The plan includes:

• the brand's EXPRESS Café & Bar
• a meeting room
• an on-site gym
• 103 guest rooms aimed at both business and leisure travellers

The location is the selling point. 178 St Georges Terrace sits within walking distance of the CBD's corporate offices, Elizabeth Quay and the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre, with good public transport close by. Holiday Inn Express is a select-service brand, so the model relies on high occupancy from weekday corporate guests topped up by weekend leisure stays.

SKS Group was founded in Malaysia in 1983 and is now based in Burswood. It is building a meaningful hotel position in Perth. This is its second Holiday Inn Express with IHG in Australia. The first, the 170-room Holiday Inn Express Cockburn, is preparing to open in December. Together the two projects add 273 rooms across two Perth locations. SKS also owns Holiday Inn Johor Bahru City Centre in Malaysia, so the relationship with IHG already spans two countries.

SKS director and chief financial officer Eugene Lim said the group sees significant long-term opportunity in Perth's hotel sector. He described the project as giving an established CBD building a new purpose by pairing SKS's development skills with a well-known brand.

The group has been busy. Around the same time it bought 178 St Georges Terrace, it also picked up Kings View, a 10-level apartment building on a waterfront block in Crawley, to refurbish and sell. The common thread is buying existing buildings and adding value through repositioning rather than starting from a cleared site.

For IHG, Perth is a growth market. Matt Tripolone, the group's managing director for Australasia and Pacific, said as much at the signing and pointed to the value of pairing the right brand with the right location. IHG already runs the InterContinental Perth City Centre, where the deal was signed.

Brand operators like conversions because they can add rooms faster and with less construction risk than a new tower. The owner carries the capital cost. The operator brings distribution, a loyalty programme with more than 160 million members globally and a reservations engine that a stand-alone hotel would struggle to match.

178 St Georges Terrace is not the only office building on Perth's main business street being reimagined with a hotel in mind.

• St Martins Centre: a $240 million renovation of the six-building St Martins precinct, including the 33-storey St Martins Tower, was endorsed for approval in July 2026. It proposes a 243-key premium hotel with a sky bar, pool club, food and beverage, retail and A-grade office.
• Western end refurbishments: several buildings around the western end of the Terrace have been upgraded in recent years, making that stretch a focus for owners trying to lift older stock.

The scale is very different. St Martins is a precinct-level redevelopment, while 178 St Georges Terrace is a nine-level building on a 560 sqm lot. But both point to the same conclusion. Office space that no longer competes for tenants still has value when the floorplates, location and structure suit another use.

Turning a 60-year-old office building into a hotel is not a simple fit-out. Every room needs its own bathroom, which means new plumbing risers and drainage through floors that were never designed for them. Fire separation between rooms, acoustic treatment, lifts sized for guests and luggage, kitchen exhaust for a café and bar and upgraded mechanical services all add cost.

That is why the reported project value of around $60 million is so far above the $9.5 million purchase price. Most of the money goes into the building rather than the land. The upside is speed and certainty. The structure is already standing, the site is already in the CBD and there is no excavation or new frame to build.

The economics only work when the purchase price is low enough to absorb the conversion budget. Buying a vacant building priced on its land and development potential, rather than on office income, is what gives a project like this room to stack up.

Perth's CBD office market has been tightening, with vacancy falling through 2026 even as national figures stay high. That improvement is concentrated in better-quality buildings. Older, smaller assets with tight floorplates are still hard to lease as offices, which is why buyers such as SKS are pricing them on alternative use.

Hotels make particular sense in Perth right now. The city has a steady flow of corporate and resources travel, a growing events calendar and limited new hotel supply in the core CBD. A conversion can reach the market faster than a ground-up tower, provided the structure and services can be adapted.

The deal also shows how a branded operator agreement changes the story of an asset. In January, 178 St Georges Terrace was a vacant office bought for $9.5 million. With IHG signed, it becomes a branded hotel project with a clear end product, which matters to lenders, future investors and the city itself.

• Look at the floorplate, not just the address. Small side-core plates that frustrate office tenants can suit hotels, student accommodation or apartments.
• Sell the alternative. 178 St Georges Terrace was marketed on its development upside for commercial or residential use, which widened the buyer pool beyond office investors.
• An operator changes the conversation. A recognised brand turns an empty building into a project people can picture.
• Show buyers the future, not the vacancy. When a building is empty or dated, renders, floor plans and a clear vision for the end use do far more work than photos of bare floors.

The next milestones are a confirmed construction start and an opening date for Holiday Inn Express Perth City Centre, neither of which has been announced. Watch also for the opening of Holiday Inn Express Cockburn in December, which will be the first real test of SKS's Perth hotel strategy.

More broadly, watch for other owners at the western end of St Georges Terrace to follow with conversions of their own. If 178 St Georges Terrace delivers, the former Singapore Airlines House could become the template for how Perth's smaller, older CBD office buildings find their next life.