Plans to add a rooftop extension to Whitefriars House in Friar Lane to house seven high-quality serviced apartments have been approved.
Planning permission had previously been agreed to create ten apartments within the unoccupied space on the upper floors, and the entire redevelopment plan for the 17 high quality serviced apartments is now expected to be developed. Each self-contained unit will come complete with a fully equipped kitchen, dining and living area, along with associated bedrooms.
Whitefriars House is a mid-20th century, three-storey brick, mixed-use building arranged over ground and two upper floors. Forbidden Planet currently occupies the retail space on Friar Lane, with the two upper levels – previously office space – being unoccupied. The building line follows the street, running down Spaniel Row, where the Ned Ludd pub occupies the prominent corner location over all three existing floors.
The development, designed by Nottingham-based architects CPMG Architects, will see a lightweight ‘loft’ storey added, with a standing seam mansard roof and elegant dormer windows. High–quality aluminium windows with side ventilation panels will be used, with the colour of the frames selected to create a unified palette of colours to tie the whole building together.
Manjas Lidder, director at PKL Investments, the company behind the development, said,
“We’re of course really pleased that planning permission has been granted which will allow us to bring another site, in addition to our Devonshire Court West Bridgford offering, for the Stay Company to Nottingham. We already have a successful apartment offering in Derby with four city centre locations, and this brings us another step closer to becoming the go-to company in the East Midlands for high-quality serviced accommodation.”
“The hope is that these apartments provide accommodation provision for businesspeople coming to Nottingham for a few weeks to a few months at a time. These apartments provide spacious, well thought out comfortable alternatives
to a hotel and allow guests to enjoy a home away from home. We’re very much looking forward to progressing work on site, which we hope will begin in early 2021.”
The existing front entrance onto Friar Lane will also be retained and refurbished to form the new main pedestrian entrance into the apartments.
Ajay Chauhan, associate at CPMG Architects, said,
“As we are working within an existing building with multiple tenants, we’ve taken every step to ensure that there will be no disruption to the ground floor commercial tenants or the Ned Ludd pub, which occupies all three floors to the south of the building. We’ve also given careful consideration when developing the design, to ensure that it ties in well with the existing building fabric and surrounding area.”
“Planning permission had already been agreed to create ten apartments on the upper floor of the building, so we’re really pleased that the rooftop extension and remaining apartments have been given the green light by the council and are very much looking forward to starting work on site next year.”
The project team for Whitefriars House is Couch Perry Wilkes, mechanical and electrical consultants; Hexa Consulting, structural and civil engineers; and Pulse Consult, project managers.
For more information about CPMG Architects, please visit www.cpmg-architects.com.