Plans for a £100m, 32-storey student accommodation tower in Leeds city centre from Real Estate Capital Holdings and Bloombridge have been given the go-ahead.
Designed by SimpsonHaugh, the tower, which has a reflective façade, will replace a 1970s office block at 44 Merrion Street in the centre of Leeds’ Cultural District.
It will provide 573 undergraduate club rooms and studio apartments, as well as 87 postgraduate studio apartments.
The undergraduate club rooms account for around 73% of the accommodation and are clustered in groups of five. All have en suite bathrooms. Each five-bedroom cluster has a separate kitchen and dining space. Communal living areas will be shared between two clusters.
Around 5% of the total student bed spaces are allocated as wheelchair-accessible.
Other features in the 99.9m tall tower are postgraduate rooftop amenity space and street-level retail, arts and cultural space.
Richard Cutler, partner at Bloombridge, said: “Everything about this project signifies a strong response to the uncertainties created by Covid-19. As well as providing a design-led home for students, this development will raise the bar for architecture in Leeds’ Cultural District.”
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