The burgeoning bar and restaurant scene in Birmingham's business district is set to be boosted again with two more newcomers.
New plans have been unveiled to renovate Somerset House, in Temple Street, to create two new ground floor restaurants and refurbish the vacant office space above, previously home to law firm Shakespeares.
The imposing building currently houses beauty salon Serenity which closed down last summer after less than three years in business following a relaunch.
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London-based owner Circle Property intends to revamp the ground floor area and knock through the units so the new restaurants stretch back to Needless Alley at the rear.
No end occupiers for the restaurant units are identified in the newly submitted planning documents but the Post understands advanced discussions are in place for one of them.
Whichever companies move in, plenty of competition awaits them in the Colmore Business District in recent months.
Somerset House, at 34-40 Temple Street, was constructed in 1936 for a company called Somerset Buildings and was designed by Birmingham-based architecture practice Essex and Goodman.
The same firm designed the old Cannon cinema in John Bright Street and Scala Theatre, in what was Smallbrook Street,
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Circle Property also owns nearby Cheltenham House, at 14-16 Temple Street, which houses The Botanist and offices above.
This week it announced it had secured a new £50 million funding deal with RBS to support this project alongside the refurbishment of its other Birmingham property at 36 Great Charles Street.
Jewellery Quarter-based firms Fusion Building Consultancy and Pinnegar Hayward Design are both working on the Somerset House redevelopment.