The Ribbon, Sydney

The Ribbon is a hotel, apartment building, retail store and movie theatre located in Darling Harbour, Sydney. It contains the W Sydney hotel and IMAX Sydney, the third-largest operating movie theatre screen in the world. The building is named The Ribbon due to its unusual ribbon-like appearance. On its northern and southern sides, the building is flanked by two carriageways of the Western Distributor.

History

The Ribbon is built upon the site of the old IMAX theatre which was built in 1996 and was demolished after closing in 2016.
Construction on the new building started in 2017, was finished in 2022 and opened on 12 October 2023. The Ribbon was originally scheduled to be completed in 2020 but was delayed due by the bankruptcy of two of its builders, Grocon and Probuild, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic. It was completed by Multiplex opening in October 2023.

Design

The building has 588 rooms and suites and includes a rooftop heated infinity pool and wet deck with a two-storey bar, several other bars, a spa, a BTWN restaurant, meeting rooms and IMAX Sydney, a 325-seat cinema with the third-largest operating movie theatre screen in the world with a slightly curved screen which is or, that is also the second-tallest and fourth-largest screen ever built, surpassed only by the Melbourne IMAX theatre screen which measures,, the Traumpalast cinema hall in Leonberg, Germany which has a screen measuring, and the screen in the previous theatre building that it replaced, which measured,.