Plans for a roof-top pool on a new city centre hotel overlooking Birmingham Cathedral have been scrapped.
Principal Hotel Company, which is opening the hotel in The Grand, has revamped its designs for the venue in Colmore Row and abandoned its plans for the open-air pool.
A proposed spa and gym on the sixth and top floors are also to be replaced by five new bedrooms while a further two bedrooms will be enlarged.
Plans for a roof terrace outside the top-floor 'King Suite' have also been abandoned.
A revised planning application is now being reviewed by Birmingham City Council and, if granted consent, the project would more closely reflect the previously granted planning permission for the regeneration of the historic building.
The venue will now have 185 bedrooms along with conference facilities and a restaurant but it is not clear yet what star rating the hotel is expected to have.
No reason is given in the new application as to why the plans have been changed but the revisions come just a few months after Principal's US owner Starwood Capital sold the firm to French investors Foncière des Régions.
At the same time, Foncière des Régions, now known as Covivio, also agreed a new operating deal with InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) which owns well-known brands such as Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, Hotel Indigo and Kimpton.
IHG will rebrand and operate 13 Principal hotels including The Grand but it is not known at this stage which name the Birmingham hotel will carry.
Principal specialises in revamping landmark city centre buildings and operates sites across the UK.
It announced a partnership deal in 2017 with The Grand's owner Hortons' Estate to develop and run the new hotel, making it Principal's first investment in Birmingham.
Hortons' Estate has been carrying out a long-running regeneration of the grade II*-listed building which has created new office space and welcomed leisure and retail operators such as Gusto, The Alchemist, Cycle Republic and Crockett & Jones.
Tony Green, chief executive of Hortons' Estate, said: "While the proposed changes are a matter for Principal Hotel Company, they will in effect return the hotel element of The Grand to that originally proposed by Hortons and which received consent.
"At the time, it was widely acknowledged that this resulted in the creation of Birmingham's finest hotel and we have every confidence that this will still be the case."
The Grand has not had a hotel there since 2002 and the new venue is due to open in 2019.
Principal had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.
