Mexican restaurant plan for former Birmingham building society

The former offices of a Birmingham building society are set for a new lease of life as a Mexican restaurant.

Mucho Mas, trading as Chilango, has revealed plans to convert the basement and ground floor of the former West Bromwich Building Society on the corner of Colmore Row and Bennetts Hill.

The ground floor and basement have been vacant since November last year when the building society relocated to new offices in New Street.

Mucho Mas has applied to Birmingham City Council for planning permission to change the use of the building from financial services to a restaurant, and supported this will proposals for any necessary ventilation and extraction system.

Noise is not thought to be an issue and the area has seen many similar conversions in recent years such as that carried out on the former banking hall in Bennetts Hill, now home to the Cosy Club.

Businesses in the Colmore Business District certainly won’t be short of options for their dinner meetings as alongside this scheme, Primitivo has announced its return next month and the Gaucho venue in the converted 55 Colmore Row is also set to open shortly.

A planning, heritage, design and access statement has been prepared by Pegasus Group on behalf of Mucho Mas.

It said that as the new restaurant, which will create 20 jobs, was not being based in a listed building then it was a suitable use for the offices. The building lies just outside the Colmore Row Conservation Area.

The proposed restaurant would operate between 11am – 11pm Monday to Saturday, and 12noon to 8pm on Sundays and Bank Holidays.

The design statement says: “The proposed restaurant will serve to enhance the function of the shopping area and is an acceptable land use in the city centre. The proposed use will enhance this function by generating a significant amount of footfall in its own right, and being open during both the daytime and the evening. As such the proposal will support the viability and vitality of the local area.”

The Chilango chain is based predominantly in London but the group has said it has ambitions to grow nationwide. The Birmingham restaurant would not be its first venture outside the capital as it already has a branch in Manchester.