Ibis Styles Araneta City

Following the opening of the Novotel Manila hotel, Araneta Center Inc. announced in 2018, that a second hotel would be built at the Araneta Center (now Araneta City). The second hotel was touted to be "a lifestyle budget hotel" run by "a popular international brand".[2] Groundbreaking started on August 2017, while the ceremonial groundbreaking for the Gateway Mall 2 including the adjacent Ibis Styles hotel took place in August 2018. The Ibis Styles hotel, like Novotel Manila Araneta City is also a hotel brand under AccorHotels under the Ibis Styles brand[3] , and costed ₱1.5 billion to build, with Megawide Construction Corporation serving as the general contractor of the project, along with the New Gateway Mall. [4]

On January 20, 2020, the hotel was officially topped off,[5] and is scheduled to begin partial operations in late 2020 with full operations projected by early 2021.[6] However, due to the effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic in the country, the opening of the hotel, along with the adjacent New Gateway Mall was delayed. The opening of the complex was moved and is now slated to open within the 2nd Quarter of 2021.

The hotel is part of the Gateway Square complex, a prime mixed-use, transit-oriented complex within the Araneta City, offering retail shops, offices, restaurants, leisure amenities, lodging spaces, and entertainment facilities, while having over 3,000 parking spaces, and ensuring connectivity via sky bridges and walk paths. The complex consists of the two Gateway Malls, the Gateway Tower, the Novotel Manila Araneta City, the Smart Araneta Coliseum, and the Araneta Coliseum Parking Garage.[7]

The hotel was designed by RTKL Associates in collaboration with Sudhakar Thakurdesai, along with the help of local architectural firms Palafox Associates and Aidea.[8] The architecture of the building is similarly designed to the Cyberpark Tower 1, located at the Araneta City Cyberpark, while the hotel's interiors will be based from the historical events in the Araneta Coliseum throughout its 60-year (1960-2020) history.[5]

The Ibis Styles Hotel Araneta City stands at 84.86 m (278.4 ft) tall,[5] and is directly connected to the Gateway Mall 2 shopping mall through the hotel's first five floors.[9] The hotel has 286 rooms with 22 guestrooms on each floor, and has six function rooms for meetings and conferences. The hotel will also feature a lobby lounge, an all day dining restaurant and patisserie, and a roof deck swimming pool with a roof deck pool bar, providing a special view to the Manila Bay sunset.[5][10][11]