Westminster City Council has approved plans for a 62,000 sq ft tourist hostel at the London Pavilion, W1.
Plans by owner London Trocadero to convert the Grade II listed building in the Trocadero Complex on Piccadilly were approved by a 3-1 vote at a planning meeting this week.
The building already had partial planning consent to create 434 beds, with shared bathroom facilities and two- to three-tier bunkbed sleeping for travellers in the 25-35 age group in 2020, which has yet to be implemented.
The newly approved plans include additional floorspace, which is currently occupied by a nightclub, on the first and second floors.
As part of the plans, this space will have a capacity of 964 beds in addition to a smaller nightclub venue of around 23,000 sq ft, which will remain at basement and ground floor levels.
Council members agreed that the various entertainment uses for the site had commercially failed and the application was seen as giving the building a successful long-term use.
The existing planning permission for a large part of the floorspace and the operator of the nightclub confirming the need to downsize owing to financial difficulties led the committee to vote in favour of the plans, subject to conditions.
Originally built as a theatre in 1885, the building, which is located on a triangular site surrounded by Shaftesbury Avenue, Coventry Street and Great Windmill Street, was converted into a cinema in the 1930s before undergoing redevelopment again in the 1980s to facilitate its use by Madame Tussaud’s Rock Circus for its waxworks exhibition.
There will be no on-site parking at the hostel but plans detail 28 cycle parking spaces in the basement for staff and guest use.
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