Plans to revamp a run-down historic building in Birmingham city centre to create a new hotel and leisure development are set to be approved next week. In May, Irish developer Oakmount and sister leisure firm Creative Cedar announced they had bought Methodist Central Hall in Corporation Street and were planning to renovate the grade II* listed building.
The application will go before Birmingham City Council's planning committee on Thursday where officers have recommended that it is approved.
The overall vision for Methodist Central Hall is a mixed-use complex with a hotel containing up to 155 bedrooms, a three-storey roof extension to house a restaurant and bar called Sophie's, new commercial and business units and the restoration of the auditorium. Developers also want to build an event space and nightclub in the basement, a public gym and renovate shop fronts on the ground floor.
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The new hotel would be called 'The Dean' and be operated by Dublin-based Oakmount's sister company Press Up Hospitality which has more than 65 hotel and leisure sites, mainly across Ireland.
This would be the fourth The Dean hotel and first outside of Ireland and the overall development is expected to create around 410 full- and part-time jobs.
Methodist Central Hall, which was completed in 1904, was once home to the famous Que Club and welcomed major artists such as David Bowie, Daft Punk and Blur between 1989 and 2017.
It now sits empty and unused, aside from a few of its ground-floor commercial units, and the building has fallen into a severe state of disrepair in recent years, causing heritage body Historic England to place it on its 'At Risk' register.
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A report prepared by planning officers ahead of next week's meeting said: "The proposal would result in comprehensive repair and re-use of this grade II* Listed heritage asset that will open the restored building to the public.
"Securing reuse of the building would remove the premises from the Historic England at risk register and reinvigorate this area of the conservation area."
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