Bam, Kier Moss, Thomas Vale and Vinci were all also chasing the £20m building project, which will be built in Southwater Square and is due to be finished in early 2014.
The deal has been struck as Thomas Vale gears up to start work next month on the another key site in Southwater Square, after beating Morgan Sindall, McLaren and Anglo Holt to the prized first phase retail element of the town centre scheme.
Thomas Vale will begin groundworks in November on an 11-screen cinema, 80-bed hotel and a string of restaurants being developed by developer Citygrove Securities (below).
Toby Baines, chairman of Citygrove, which is leading the development, said: “Southwater Square has attracted high quality tenants such as Wagamama, Pizza Express and Cineworld and will result in a £25m investment in Telford creating 260 jobs.”
Telford & Wrekin Council leader Kuldip Sahota said: “The plans for Southwater have evolved over time but I am delighted that we are now in a position where we will see tangible evidence of what we have been promising start to rise up before people’s eyes.
“We’ve had to be patient. It took a full year for services to be installed in the ground so that all the planned buildings would be able to function properly but now we can start building it is a very exciting time.”