Liverpool planning update: Titanic HQ and Hahnemann House
TWO major schemes were approved by Liverpool City Council’s planning committee yesterday – the conversion of the former White Star Line HQ into a hotel, and Maghull’s plans for student accommodation at Hahnemann House.
Liverpool-based Signature Living, owned by Lawrence and Katie Kenwright, is in the process of buying White Star Line’s Albion House from District & Urban Properties for £1.6m and is planning a 35-bed hotel with a further 30 ensuite rooms.
The seventh floor will house a restaurant and there will also be events space. The Kenwrights want to play on the Titanic heritage and strip out false ceilings and partition walls to reveal steel columns and rivets that they say were handled by the engineers that worked on the cruise liner. The building has been empty for a number of years.
Meanwhile, the Maghull Group is to press ahead with the conversion of two grade II-listed buildings in Hope Street into accommodation for 100 students.
Hahnemann House and the neighbouring Georgian townhouse at 58 Hope Street will be converted into 93 single studios, two two-bedroom cluster units, and one duplex unit of three bedrooms.
Managing director Sean McGurren said: “We’re pleased to have secured this consent which now gives us the go-ahead to create units of a quality we feel will be unmatched anywhere in the city in terms of the student offer. It will give students the chance to live and work in a highly accessible location close to the city centre and within the Knowledge Quarter.”
The conversion has been designed by Falconer Chester Hall architects. Negotiations are now at an “advanced stage” with a national student operator. Maghull plans to have the site ready for the September intake of students.
