Apartments approved for Victorian warehouse

A former Victorian warehouse in Birmingham is to be transformed into 61 apartments after new plans were approved.The scheme, which includes the 14,000 sq ft Lockside House office building, is the first in the city by Consortia Developments, a London-based property development and asset management business specialising in new homes.Consortia had existing permission to convert Lockside House in Scotland Street into 16 apartments under a Permitted Development Rights (PDR) application.The developer has now won planning permission to add a roof extension to the building and to develop the adjacent car park, creating a total of 17 1-bed and 44 2-bed homes at the site.The go-ahead was granted by Birmingham City Council’s planning committee at a virtual meeting on Thursday 7 January.Originally built as a workshop, and part of a series of buildings known as Scotland Works, Lockside House housed a number of manufacturing businesses in the late 1800s.In the early 20th century, a plate and sheet glass merchant occupied the premises.Associated Architects has designed the new £16m (GDV) scheme, which will vary between five and six storeys.Consortia, which is funded by a small group of private investors, acquired the Lockside House site from Groundwork, the charities federation, last year.Corsortia is planning to start on site in May 2021, when the existing tenants vacate the building.Groundworks currently occupies the entire top floor; Sustainability WM, the only other occupier, has 1,000 sq ft on the second floor.The development is anticipated to complete in the second quarter of 2023.