Living Brick plots five-star Liverpool hotel

The developer has exchanged contracts with housing association Onward Homes for the sale of 12 Hanover Street, a five-storey, grade two-listed building, for around £4m with a view to creating what it claims would be the city’s first five-star hotel.

The 40,000 sq ft city-centre building was designed by Edmund Kirby and completed in 1890. Onward Homes is relocating to a new premises on Renshaw Street to make way for the development.

The deal was brokered by Domec Professional Services, a multidisciplinary consultancy that will also undertake the structural and architectural work for the project.

It is the second collaboration between Domec and Living Brick, which are working together on the second phase of the Baltic Hotel redevelopment on Jamaica Street.

A spokesperson for Living Brick said: “12 Hanover Street is an iconic grade two-listed building. We’ve been working behind the scenes on our plans for this building and there are some very exciting partnerships in the pipeline, tied to our aspiration to create the first five-star hotel in Liverpool.

“We think the city is ready for it and this building is perfectly primed for this purpose.”

Matt Fedigan, co-founding director at Domec, added: “A five-star hotel with real character at the heart of the city centre is one clear aspect that such an important, growing city as Liverpool has lacked for some time. Domec Professional Services continues to play a role in creating the next chapter of Liverpool’s revival history in direct partnership with our clients.

“We sought to create a compelling architectural vision for the locally much-loved, grade two-listed, building, and brought together two perfectly suited locally based parties in Living Brick and the previous freeholders, which had overlapping mutual interests and objectives.”

Worthington Owen acted as the agent for Onward Homes and Domec acted as advisor to Living Brick. ACSL is providing legal advice.

In a similar scheme, Principal Hotel Group had an application for the conversion of the grade two-listed Martins Bank approved in June 2019. When initial plans were submitted in 2016 it was thought that the building would be converted into a five-star hotel but work never started on site.

No timeline has been set for the 215-bedroom development which is being designed by Brock Carmichael.