Former Radford pub to become offices...

It is a historic building



Student accommodation in Coventry will be turned into offices, it has been agreed.

Coventry City Council has given approval to change the use of Canal View Court in St Columbas Close, near to the Canal Basin.

The building dates back to the 1800s when it opened as The Admiral Codrington pub, but only recently converted to student rooms.

However operators admitted demand for the flats has dropped due to the increase in student skyscrapers, heightened by occupancy struggles during the pandemic.

The new vision is hoped to provide sought-after office space in an attractive location close to the city centre, which could be open for next year.

Andrew Christou, from AMC Project and Building Consultants, whose family own the site, said: “It is good news for us.

“We have got similar change of use applications in Leamington as well and this is just the way the market seems to be going.”

Speaking about the plans last month, Mr Christou said only one flat was occupied and student accommodation was no longer sustainable for them.

He said: “The residential student market in the city is completely saturated. It has gone from being a popular site to a not so popular one with empty apartments.

“It worked perfectly for student accommodation but then all the skyscrapers came within the Ring Road and that took all the residential business away temporarily.

“We have decided it is not sustainable and made the decision to look at the commercial market.

“Regardless of everyone working from home there does seem to be a lot of interest for office space. The demand is still there, it is just a smaller space people want.

“Finding a space with half-decent facilities in Coventry is difficult, so we want to address that.

“It is a great walk along the canal and if we can attract one or two companies it would be great to see other things around there too such as cafes.”

The building has a ground floor and first floor and the vision is to open it up to multiple companies to use as office space across both.

An existing six-space car park will also be retained as part of approval granted by the council at the end of July.

The bottom's fallen out of the market, people are going to catch colds.

It was all so predictable!