Plans submitted to convert Lloyds’ King St branch

THE owner of the Lloyds Bank building on King St has applied to convert its banking hall into leisure and retail units.

Vision Developments (North West) has applied to partially demolish and convert the building’s ground and basement floors into a mix of retail and leisure uses. It also plans to clean up the building and open up windows on the fourth floor to provide more light.

The building, which was bought by Vision Developments and Infinity Asset Management in a deal reported to be worth £6m three years ago, is currently occupied by Lloyds.

However, its long term lease on the 43,000 sq ft property has expired and several upper office floors have been vacated. The bank still operates a city centre branch from the ground floor, but has been looking to relocate to a more prominent site on Market St, where it had an application to convert a retail unit knocked back by the city council last year.

Vision Developments’ director Stephen Cliff told TheBusinessDesk.com that the bank currently occupies the building on a flexible lease and added that its application was being brought forward to make the site more attractive to potential long term occupiers.

Several other former banking halls in the area nearby have already been converted into restaurants, including the Lutyens-designed former HSBC bank at 100 King St which reopened as a Jamie’s Italian last month.

“It gives us more flexibility to let the space,” he said.

He added that it has held talks with a number of potential occupiers for the space but had not yet signed a deal with anyone.