Former Knutsford Court Hotel in New Kingston Set for June 3 Auction

The four-acre New Kingston property once operated as the Knutsford Court Hotel is scheduled to go under the hammer on June 3, based on an auction notice carried in The Gleaner.

The sale will be conducted at the Tremaine Road offices of Allison Pitter & Company. "Deposits payable immediately by certified cheque or bank transfer," the notice said of the procedure.

Situated on Ruthven Road within the corporate and commercial heart of New Kingston, the lot also has a rear access point on Chelsea Avenue. According to the notice, the property includes "175 air-conditioned rooms, now converted for office use, a restaurant and bar, 10,000 square feet of meeting and banquet space, swimming pool, courtyard area with 110 parking spaces."

The planned auction is the most recent stumble in attempts to convert the site into a mixed business and entertainment hub. The Financial Gleaner has been told that some interested parties are pushing to halt the June 3 sale, although the source asked not to be named.

Rebranded Summit under its current ownership, the property was bought in 2022 by investment holding firm Novamed for roughly US$40 million. Filings at the Companies Office of Jamaica show Dr David Walcott with a 60 per cent stake in Novamed Ltd and Gillian Walcott holding the remaining 40 per cent, with no additional shareholders or directors listed.

It remains unclear whether Novamed Ltd itself or an affiliated entity closed the purchase, since earlier coverage of the transaction named Kirk-Anthony Hamilton of Tech Beach Retreat and Kevin Donaldson of Roots Financial Group among the parties linked to the deal. Walcott declined to comment, while Donaldson indicated he would speak at a later time.

Novamed unveiled plans in early 2023 to turn the shuttered hotel into what it called a "smart business campus" aimed at tenants from the finance, health, food, recreation, and professional services sectors. Construction work on the redevelopment had already started.

Before its closure and Summit rebranding, the Knutsford Court Hotel — earlier known as Sutton Place Hotel — was a long-standing presence in Kingston's corporate hospitality scene.