Forest Rock Garden, first hotel on concrete pillars

Shirajiv Sirimane in Anuradhapura

On going construction of the hotel Picture by Saliya Rupasinghe

For the first time an entrepreneur is building a luxury boutique hotel in Andarawewa, Anuradhapura on concrete pillars. The hotel is to be named as Forest Rock Garden Hotel. The mentor behind the project, Baladurage Chandrasiri said that the main idea of building the hotel on a higher elevation (20 metres high) was because he wanted to save trees and cause minimum damage to the environment.

“We only had to cut two small trees while building the hotel and have already planted over 300 trees,” he emphasized. He said that what they want to create is a natural ancient environment where animals could walk beneath the hotel.

The hotel built similar to an ancient city, would extend on a 50 acre land taken on long term lease from the Mahaweli Authority. “We are hoping to invest Rs. 650 million for the first stage of the project,” he said. The investment would comprise of 40% bank borrowings and the balance would be funded by Chandrasiri and Italian investors.

The construction of the hotel is already in progress with 80% completed and the hotel is scheduled to be opened for the 2013 winter season.

He said that under the first phase 20 rooms would be completed.

Another unique feature of the hotel is that it comprises seven ultra luxury rooms with a individual plunge pool, mini gym, kitchen and a large sitting out area.

These rooms would also have modern security systems which includes cameras to monitor the entrance.

The main market they hope to attract is the high end clientele from Europe and the local up market clientele mainly nature lovers. “We hope to have a staff of 80 and 90% of them would be recruited from the area in a bid to give some thing back to the local community.

One of the other features of this hotel is that it is being built with no civil engineer or architect. “This is my dream and I plan and build according to it,” he said.

Chandrasiri also own and operate the three star Palm Garden Village hotel which is just 8 km away from the new hotel.

Palm garden opened in 1996 and consists of 50 rooms.