Starting in early May, we’ll regularly be visiting our fourth location: Cityden Oud-Zuid. For many of us, this is the very first time we’re opening a brand-new Cityden location. Our fourth baby, located on Beethovenstraat in Amsterdam Oud-Zuid, promises to become a true work of art. During the construction process, we’ll stop by regularly to visit the location and capture everything along the way. This allows us to keep all our loyal guests, new guests, clients and followers up to date on all the developments taking place.

Alongside these diaries, we’ll also be filming fun vlogs that will be shared on our Instagram and TikTok. After the very first introduction vlog, many more will follow with fun updates and visible progress.

In these diaries, we’d love to take you behind the scenes. We’ll share what our construction supervisor tells us, but also simply what we notice ourselves (as amateur DIY enthusiasts). Tuesday, May 12th, was the big day: our very first visit since construction officially began. Before the work started, we had seen the building in its original state. A perfectly fine hotel, but with some outdated elements. Now that we stepped inside again, there was nothing left of the old hotel and restaurant we once knew. Stripped walls and bare floors were all we could see.

On the ground floor, the future reception and restaurant are slowly taking shape. Right now, it’s still one large empty space filled with construction materials. At this point, it’s hard to imagine that this will eventually become two completely separate and distinct areas. In the middle of the room is a large opening, visible on every floor of the building. Through this opening, the construction workers throw down all the old materials, basically one giant wooden slide.

Through an emergency staircase hidden somewhere deep inside the building, we’re guided up to the sixth floor. We’ve now reached the top floor of our hotel, offering a stunning view over Amsterdam and the Zuidas district. This entire space has been stripped down completely, revealing the true history of the building. Characteristic beams, old pieces of wallpaper and, surprisingly, beautiful posters dating all the way back to 1975. One of the posters read: “Visit our theatre show on April 14th, 1975.” It’s amazing to see how well preserved these details remained behind all those layers of walls, paint and wallpaper.

According to our construction supervisor, this floor is now ready for rebuilding. “Shall we continue to the other floors?” he asks. Off we go again. Using another staircase, we slowly make our way down through all the floors. To the untrained (and very non-professional) eye, every floor looks pretty much the same: bare walls, endless scaffolding pipes and, most importantly, lots of “watch your step.” The construction crew is working hard to transform this place into a beautiful new space, with proper insulation being one of the main priorities.

At the front of the hotel lies Beethovenstraat a classic but very busy street. Thanks to the new windows and frames, you barely notice any of that noise, even now while the building is only halfway finished. We move crisscross through the different floors, uncovering layers from the building’s previous lives: children’s drawings, old wallpaper and sometimes even four layers of tiles stacked on top of each other. Something the builders are definitely not happy about, but for our content it’s actually fascinating to see.

After exploring every floor and hearing all the exciting stories and plans, we eventually find ourselves back on the ground floor. We swap our construction shoes (yes, the steel-toe ones) back for our own sneakers and say goodbye to the construction team. For us, it was incredibly special to witness the very first phase of this project with our own eyes. We’ll be back soon and hope to show you more footage of the rebuilding process and perhaps even your future place to stay!