Pub plan for Grand Hotel’s boiler room

The Grand Hotel

The owner of Birmingham’s Grand Hotel has submitted plans to change the use of the building’s former boiler room and plant area to create a new pub or restaurant.

The proposals have been long been part of the overall plan for the refurbishment of the hotel but these should ensure the scheme can progress to the next stage.

The application submitted to Birmingham City Council refers to the rear of the building – the frontage to Barwick Street – and the unit forming the application is a former boiler room and plant area which closed in 2002.

The proposals will allow the 546 sqm unit’s layout to be amended so it is capable of either A3 (food and drink) or A4 (drinking establishment) use.

Such permission will be key in helping Hortons to attract a tenant for the unit.

Chief executive Tony Green has said the company remains in talks with potential operators for the new facility, which would operate separately to the hotel.

It is thought the pub option – similar to Pub du Vin at neighbouring Hotel du Vin or the Bacchus Bar beneath The Burlington Hotel in New Street – is the preferred choice.

It is unclear whether the planning permission is determinant on an operator coming on board but Hortons is thought to have received a lot of interest from potential operators for what would be, a showpiece site.

The Grand Hotel’s Barwick Street frontage

Proposed work on the unit includes repairs to existing areas of brickwork and concrete floor, the retention of cast iron columns, the demolition of certain interior walls, new fire doors and the removal of an area of parquet flooring to allow for the installation of a concrete slab. Four doorways on the frontage of the building would also be altered.

A design statement submitted by CBRE states: “The proposed works, in relation to the existing condition of the unit, involve minimal harm to significance and will add to the overall attractiveness of securing optimum viable uses for a vacant unit within the city centre.”

There is a separate planning application to cover listed building consent for the alterations.

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