Apex Hotels, the Scottish hotel chain, is to develop a £60m four-star hotel in London.

The group acquired 1-3 Serjeants’ Inn, located just off Fleet Street, from the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, an ancient law society.

The 100,000sq ft (9,290sq m) building will be converted into a 170-room hotel – with restaurant, bar and conference facilities – which will be the eighth in the company’s portfolio when it opens in December 2009.

Norman Springford, chair of Apex Hotels, said: “We feel we can create something special at Serjeants’ Inn, and are grateful to be given the opportunity from the Inner Temple to do so.”

Meanwhile, the company is working on adding a further 49 bedrooms to its City of London Hotel on Seething Lane – which is due to completed this September – and the conversion of a former office block in Copthall Avenue, London, into an 89-room hotel, which is due to be completed next June.