A project to bring a vacant Grade II-listed office building back into use as serviced apartments is set to receive the green light next week.
Rustic Pine Developments submitted plans late last year to turn 7-8 Waterloo Street, in the Colmore Business District, into 32 one- and two-bedroom serviced apartments with a bar or restaurant on the ground floor and basement.
Birmingham City Council's planning committee has been recommended to approve the application when it meets on January 22, subject to officers securing a £16,000 contribution from the developer for public transport improvements in the vicinity.
The seven-storey building, which neighbours a Premier Inn and counts several bars and restaurants in close proximity, was the subject of plans by Holiday Inn owner InterContinental Hotels Group more than two years ago.
It wanted to open a 61-bedroom Hotel Indigo to join its existing outlet in The Cube.
This was also to be run by Rustic Pine Developments but InterContinental Hotels Group is not connected to this latest project.
The building has been unoccupied for more than four years and planning permission was granted in 2010 for the change of use to a hotel but this has since lapsed.
A report prepared ahead of the committee meeting said: "The re-use and refurbishment of the listed building complies with the objectives of the national and local planning policy.
"The scheme would bring the building back into use and would preserve and enhance both the listed building and the character of the Colmore Row and Environs Conservation Area."
If successful, the complex would join a burgeoning serviced apartment sector in the city with projects either planned or already under way by Staycity and Bloc Hotel, both in the Jewellery Quarter, and Court Collaboration in the former HSBC building, in Paradise Street.
