The Bowbridge Group has submitted an outline planning application for a new £200m mixed-use scheme in the heart of Leicester city centre.
The local developer plans to transform the old Corah factory site into a new urban quarter for the city.
Plans include 250 new homes, a 17-storey hotel, art-house cinema, leisure centre – comprising a bowling alley and swimming pool – large food store and neighbourhood shops, offices and workshops.
A new public square will also feature a performance area. The regeneration project will be the largest in the city after Hammerson and Hermes’ Highcross Quarter – due to open later this year.
The Leicestershire-based company is the landowner of the site, located between Burleys Way and Abbey Park, once home to the largest hosiery works in Europe.
The Corah head office in the centre of the site will be retained, along with two chimneys to the north.
Bowbridge’s Nick Townsend said: “It is a site crying out for regeneration and redevelopment and underpins the regeneration of Leicester.”
Townsend confirmed the developer already has a good level of interest from operators. “We want to know that we’ve got planning permission before we start firming up on that,” he said.
If consent is granted, work could begin in summer 2009, with completion due in 2014.
