WE’LL BUILD THIS BY 2012
0 Comments | Plymouth Evening Herald, The, Feb 4, 2010 | by KEITH ROSSITER
THIS striking image shows how Plymouth’s West End could be transformed by a 20-storey tower block development.
The project, which will be completed by the end of summer 2012 if city planners give it the green light, will create a completely new city centre street.
The 20-storey block will sit alongside a second 13-storey tower, together providing apartments for 600 students.
They will crown a 20,0000 square foot exhibition space with sea views.
Below that, the ground and mezzanine floors will house up to seven shops, cafes and restaurants, some of them along a new street linking New George Street and Cornwall Street.
The 20-storey tower will rival the nearby 31-storey Oceanique building at Derry’s Cross.
The multi-million-pound scheme is by Liverpool Victoria Asset Management, which owns the shuttered Woolworths building, which closed in January last year. It will bring Barcelona architect David Mackay’s 2003 vision for a “mini-Manhattan” in Plymouth a step closure.
The designs, submitted to planners this week, would inject new life and vibrancy into the city, developer Charles Maxlow-Tomlinson said.
Mr Maxlow-Tomlinson, principal fund manager with Liverpool Victoria Asset Management, is part of a team responsible for about Pounds 650million worth of property. “Assuming we get planning permission, I would like to be on-site as soon as possible,” he said yesterday. “It’s going to take around 18 months to complete the work, and I shall be targeting the September 2012 student intake at the university.” He said the design by architects Tate Hindle (www.tatehindle. co.uk) would be a “fascinating and interesting piece of architecture”. “What I didn’t want was an ugly, functional concrete building. “It will bring life into the city centre day and night. “It seems to us to make such sense in a place like Plymouth.” The new pedestrianised street will turn another element of the Mackay Vision into reality. Mr Mackay called for a series of “lanes” in the area in his 2003 Vision for Plymouth. Mr Maxlow-Tomlinson said the street would not be a “dingy lane”, but five to six metres wide and lined with shops and cafes.
The cultural centre, above the shops, would be the full width of the existing Woolworths store. Woolworths in Plymouth closed in January last year, after the nationwide chain went into liquidation. The student accommodation would be split into pods of ten en-suite apartments sharing a commonroom. Half of the rooms would have sea views, and all would have almost full-height windows, making them light and airy. The top of the main tower would be taken up by a student refectory and bar, also with sea views. “Our research has shown that there are concerns that students are sharing houses in residential streets and that puts pressure on the more family- focused areas,” Mr Maxlow-Tomlinson said. And he predicted that the project could help to kickstart investment in the city centre. “It does look very sad down there, seeing an empty Woolworths. “This was my idea. I had Woolworths as part of my fund, and when it closed I had to think, ‘Right, what are we going to do with this?’ “I didn’t just want to put some charity shop into the building