Major plans revealed for regeneration of former Central Library site
Plans to transform the Central Library on Angel Row in Nottingham city centre have finally been revealed.
Harington Students has lodged a planning application to turn the building into a student scheme that could include up to 217 rooms, retail units and a takeaway venue.
The company says that, if planning approval is granted for the scheme, then it plans to start on site later this year, with an ambition for it to be completed in time for the 2026/27 academic year.
Harington Students was awarded the chance to buy the building from Nottingham City Council via competitive tender. The company says it understand that all other parties were proposing to demolish the building (apart from the Angel Row frontage), but that it was the only applicant willing to retain the current structure and was deemed to have “the most suitable and appropriate offer”.
When completed, the building will be made up of 53 studio apartments and six 2-bedroom, seven 3-bedroom, 11 four-bedroom, 1 five-bedroom, 1 six-bedroom and 3 eight-bedroom cluseter flats.
It will include a reception and office, meeting rooms, gym, spa, common room, games rooms, dinner party room and cinema.
If the scheme gets planning approval it will bring to end a long-running saga for the building that has been derelict since the first Covid lockdown in March 2020. The most recent plans for the Angel Row site involved transforming the building into a flexible workspace for creative businesses – but this was never progressed.
The site was openly marketed in 2020 and 2021 with a number of offers received from student developers who wanted to turn the library into a student accommodation scheme of between 4-500 beds and included a lease back of the former library frontage which was to be used for the Future High Street Funding project. A buyer was selected and a “significant” amount of due diligence and legal work was undertaken until the purchaser was found to be unable to fund the development and the agreement to sell the site was terminated in Spring 2023.
