Singapore-based Fragrance Group aims to create a 185-bed hotel in the former council headquarters on Dale Street in a scheme designed by Liverpool architects Falconer Chester Hall. Tony McDonough reports
Multi-million pound plans to turn Liverpool City Council’s former headquarters into a four-star hotel have been approved by city planners.
Singapore-based Fragrance Group aims to create a 185-bed hotel in the former Municipal Buildings on Dale Street in a scheme designed by Liverpool architects Falconer Chester Hall (FCH).
FCH says the project would also see a four-storey extension built to the rear of the existing Grade II-listed building.
“This is a significant commission for us to convert a building that had been at the centre of the city’s public life for more than a century and a half,” said Alastair Shepherd, director of FCH.
“We will carry out a sensitive refurbishment of the existing highly decorative spaces and deliver a scheme the site and its history deserve. This consent is testimony to the close working relationship with Historic England and the council’s conservation department.”
Guests will have access to facilities including a spa, gym and spectacular top lit swimming pool. The hotel will also have conference and meeting facilities plus large, guest suites and a restaurant spilling out into the atrium.
The grand main entrance on Dale Street will be retained, and the division of existing rooms to create new bedrooms will be dictated by the existing window pattern, decorative ceilings and structural masonry walls.
The new extension will be modern, contrasting with the existing building but subservient in scale with bronze colour cladding and glass detailing.
When completed, the hotel will add to the Fragrance Group’s growing portfolio of hotels in the UK, which includes properties in Manchester, Blackpool, Harrogate, Paignton and Torquay.
Another FCH-designed project – a sheltered housing scheme in West Derby Road that will include a rooftop terrace and cinema room – has also been given the go-ahead by council planners.
Being delivered by West Tree Estates, the six-storey complex will comprise 112 one and two-bedroom flats and and will be built on land currently used as a car park. The accommodation will be managed by Croft Housing Association which has operated in the city for 25 years.
“This project represents something of a departure for us and we are delighted to have been given the opportunity by West Tree Estates to widen our portfolio with this type of development,” said Falconer Chester Hall Managing Director Adam Hall.