AN eight-storey Holiday Inn Express hotel is set to rise from a former Holden car yard on King Street in Newcastle West.

The InterContinental Hotels Group, which owns the Holiday Inn brand, says it has signed a franchise agreement with a company called Pro-invest Group, which intends to build the 170-room hotel.

Plans have been lodged with Newcastle City Council for the $26.3 million building.

As well as the 170 rooms, the hotel will have space for 106 vehicles over two levels, and retail areas on the ground floor.

Pro-invest chief executive Ronald Barrott said the Holiday Inn Express Newcastle was expected to open in early 2018 and would be the fifth hotel in an agreement between Pro-invest and InterContinental to open 15 such hotels across Australia in the coming years.

The first opened at Macquarie Park in North Ryde in April. A Brisbane hotel was set to open early next year, followed by Adelaide late next year and Melbourne in early 2018.

Mr Barrott said the King Street development was in the heart of Newcastle’s commercial precinct and only 500 metres from the new transport interchange being built at Wickham.

InterContinental’s chief operating officer for Australasia and Japan, Karin Sheppard, described that part of the city as a prime location for one of the fastest growing accommodation brands in the world.

The project has also been welcomed by the state government, with the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Major Events, Stuart Ayres, describing it as a “welcome boost to the Hunter economy” and a “quality destination for business and leisure travellers”.

Tourism Hunter chairman Will Creedon said InterContinental’s decision to open in Newcastle was another sign of the city’s burgeoning tourism and accommodation sector.

Mr Creedon said InterContinental had a strong following and a hotel of this size “was likely to bring 90,000 to 100,000 new people a year to the region”.

Ms Sheppard said the InterContinental Group had 25 hotels in Australia under four brands: InterContinental, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express.

Plans are on display at Newcastle council until August 8. The Joint Regional Planning Panel is listed as the determining authority.

The hotel site, at 500 King Street, still has buildings from the former Holden car yard on site and the development application includes their demolition. Old workings under the site mean the project needs Mine Subsidence Board approval.