SIUT offers to buy Karachi hotel for Rs14.5bn

KARACHI: Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT) Trust has offered Rs14.5 billion for acquiring Hotel Regent Plaza located at Shahrah-e-Faisal to convert it into a tertiary-care general hospital, SIUT officials said.

The SIUT Trust has decided to acquire the Regent Plaza Hotel, property of Pakistan Hotel Developers Limited (PHDL), against Rs14.5 billion, says a letter of SIUT Trust.

Talking to The News, SIUT Trustee Syed Shabbar Zaidi confirmed that they had offered to buy Hotel Regent Plaza for Rs14.5 billion to convert it into a tertiary-care health facility. He said it was a 47,000 square feet built structure, which can be converted into the healthcare facility within the span of one year.

Karachi badly needs another tertiary-care health facility and constructing a large health facility by acquiring land would take years. In these circumstances, it is the best option to acquire a built structure in the heart of the city and convert it into a health facility, said Zaidi.

He maintained that it was close to most of the health facilities, including National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD), National Institute of Child Health (NICH) and Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center (JPMC).

Responding to a query, he said the deal is yet to be accepted by Pakistan Hotel Developers Limited but hoped that they would accept the offer in the interests of the people of Pakistan as well as other countries who come to Karachi for treatment of various complicated ailments.

Regarding the availability of funds for the purchase of hotel, he vowed to take loans and raise funds from public to acquire the facility.