Elliot Group is looking to complete the 488-room Paramount scheme on the site of the former Odeon cinema in London Road in the city centre. Tony McDonough reports
Developer Elliot Group is investing £8m to revive and complete a half-finished student living scheme in Liverpool.
In July Elliot acquired the partly finished Paramount scheme, located on the site of the former Odeon cinema in London Road, from administrators.
The former Odeon was demolished in 2010 work started in 2014 and a number of homes were completed and occupied. However, work on the scheme stopped in April 2016. Much of its remains empty, with its façade incomplete.
Now Elliot is to invest £8m to complete the project and has retained two of the principal sub-contractors who lost money when the previous developer collapsed. WDS Commercial and BAK-UK will be part of a team managed by main contractor Exchange Construction to complete the 488-room development.
“They’re good companies that took a hit when the original developer got into trouble and I wanted to give them an opportunity to recover some of their losses,” said Elliot Lawless, founder of Elliot Group.
“Parts of the building have been exposed for a long time to the elements so there’s a lot of investigative work to do to understand what issues this may pose for us. It was built using different contractors and advisors to my usual team and so we also need to better understand their methodologies and materials. Everyone’s putting a shift in and we’re cracking on.”
As part of this work it has been identified that insulation and other materials behind the cladding needs to be removed and replaced with ones complying with the latest fire regulations. The cladding itself is already compliant, although different rivets will be used to fix it to the new railing system holding the insulation panels in place.
The development, adjacent to Lime Street railway station, includes 150 basement car parking spaces and several ground floor commercial units.