AN EXTENSION could be added to Reading’s Broad St. Mall, which would see 601 flats built.
A planning application has been revealed to add four towers to the shopping centre. This is a revision to an approved proposal to build 422 apartments and a 101-hotel.
Site owner AEW devised changes that include additional retail and food spaces, as well as 271 one-bed, 290 two-bed and 40 three-bed apartments.
It involves part demolition of the rear of the mall so that the towers can be built from the basement and ground level up.
Parts of the mall are unoccupied, with Sushimania holding a unit near it and some of the space being used by CultureMix Arts.
The development team said any loss would be replaced with 1,501 metres of commercial space divided into eight units.
A representative of McLaren Living said: “We’re trying to move people rather than lose people.”
Any current occupiers could be relocated into vacant units elsewhere in the mall.
Representatives of the development team, which include Stantec engineering consultants and residential provider McLaren Living answered visitors’ questions during the consultation event.
A representative for Stantec said: “Since it was designed, more work has been done on the construction deliverability.
“It would have been really disruptive to the car park, as it would have involved punching cores through the existing structure columns.
“That would have been problematic not only in terms of the construction but also operational issues with the mall itself.”
No new car parking will be built, and it is uncertain how many spaces will be lost as a result of the development.
The hotel on the previous plan would replace the closed Eva’s nightclub, but approval for this has lapsed with the developers preferring to provide more apartments, while the law now requires multi-storey buildings to have two staircases and new minimum size of apartment.
A second consultation event will be held in the mall from 3.30pm to 7.30pm on Wednesday, July 19.
The McLaren Living representative said: “This is an opportunity to talk to people about what they think is a good idea, because we still have got a lot of time to change our designs, to an extent.”
For more details, log on to: https://www.bsmfuture.co.uk/
