The landmark Littlewoods Pools building has been saved from demolition as it was announced that the current £19 million plan to transform it into a hotel will still go ahead.
Capital & Centric Planning PLC has received planning permission from Liverpool City Council to go ahead with its proposal to convert the Edge Lane site into a 108-bedroom hotel, plus office spaces and shops. Planners hope this will result in hundreds of new jobs being created in Liverpool.
The Littlewoods Pools building was completed in 1938 by Scottish architect Gerald de Coucey Frasier, who also designed Lewis’s. It was built for Sir John Moores and his brother, Cecil, to house their football pools business.
The building has a rich history and refurbishment plans will help to save its heritage, after numerous other proposals fell through in recent years.
Looking further back, it was enlisted in the national interest during World War II. Bomb shelters in the basement still contain original graffiti and artwork dating back to the 1941 wartime Blitz and the ‘Battle of the Atlantic’, when some parts of Liverpool were said to be at higher risk of being bombed than London’s West End.
Tim Heatley, co-founder of Capital & Centric PLC said: “We’ve moved another step closer to getting underway with this challenging and complex project. These magnificent buildings have been vacant for over ten years, I’m excited by the thought of seeing them full of activity and life again.
“At one time these buildings were host to thousands of people, all processing data for the Littlewoods Pools business – it was a sort of human super computer. We want to bring that energy and life back to this part of Liverpool.
“This scale of private sector regeneration has been few and far between for the last five years. It’s not going to be easy but it’s worth the effort to make a step change in such a high profile location.”
Capital and Centric will start their refurbishment plans this summer.