The Mayor of Bristol has backed plans to demolish the Premier Inn at the Bearpit roundabout and build what could be Bristol’s tallest ever building in its place. New images of what is planned for the area between the roundabout and the bus station have been unveiled, as those behind the scheme call it ‘transformational’.
Bristol Live broke the news in April that Premier Inn had decided it would be too costly to upgrade its 20-storey hotel building on the corner of the Haymarket and St James Barton roundabout - more commonly known as the Bearpit - and the hotel chain had done a deal with developers Olympian Homes.
Now, the developers have revealed what the two new buildings - one of 18 and another of 28 storeys - would look like. At 28 storeys, the taller tower housing student accommodation, would be two storeys taller than the Castle Park View building, and could very well be taller than St Mary Redcliffe church’s spire.
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Olympian Homes said it would rename the area ‘St James Square’, and build two ‘new elegant high quality buildings’, around a central courtyard cafe and green spaces, which they want to improve the pedestrian space between the Bearpit and Haymarket into the bus station.
The new buildings would house a total of 574 new homes. Of those, 442 would be student rooms in the taller tower block, and 132 would be ‘co-living’ homes in the 18-storey tower block.
‘Co-living’ is a relatively recent residential concept that has been introduced in London, with other tower blocks currently being built in Sheffield and Manchester. The Bearpit plan comes after an earlier project to build a combination of student accommodation and ‘Co-living’ homes on the site of the Rupert Street NCP Car Park, which has been submitted to the city council’s planners.
Bristol Live investigated the pros and cons of the ‘Co-living’ concept in this feature in May, and reported that the team proposing it at Rupert Street had told city council planners that Bristol would have to lower its minimum standards for residential accommodation to make the ‘Co-living’ concept economically viable for developers to bring it to Bristol.
At the moment, Bristol has a minimum requirement of 37sqm for every home in the city, but some of the ‘Co-living’ rooms proposed at Rupert Street are almost half that size. Exact details on the size of what is proposed at the Bearpit, or St James Square, will only be known when a detailed planning application has been submitted.
Despite this, the Mayor of Bristol welcomed the announcement of the St James Square plans. In a tweet sharing the developer’s website, he described it as ‘exciting’.
“Exciting to see Olympian’s plans: new affordable homes, 1,900m² of public space, trees, and a proper welcome for Bus Station passengers,” he wrote. “Transforming the Beefeater/20-storey Premier Inn site would also open up views of the historic St James’ Priory,” he added.
The developers are holding an online presentation and Q&A session next week as part of a consultation exercise before submitting a formal planning application.
Of the 132 ‘Co-living’ units, the developers said 20 per cent would be rented out at affordable housing rates. Olympian Homes’ senior development manager Oliver d’Erlanger, said: “The Premier Inn building - originally built in the 1970s as an office block - has come to the end of its life.
“There is a real opportunity to transform this unwelcoming site into a place with attractive and safe public spaces that much better connect Broadmead, Bristol Bus Station, the Bear Pit and St James’ Park, and open up views to the listed St James’ Priory. That’s exactly what we propose to do.
“We have pulled together an award-winning team of architects and landscape architects to reimagine this prominent city centre site with two new landmark buildings and opening up two-thirds of the ground floor for public space. We really welcome everyone’s feedback, so please visit our consultation website and tell us what you think,” he added.
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