A prominent office building near the main shopping area in Reading town centre could be converted into flats.
The Abbey Wharf offices are situated at the confluence of the River Kennet, prominent position within walking distance of Broad Street.
An advert for the building on the REDA website states it provides ‘23,000 sq ft of refurbished, reinvigorated and redefined workspace for the discerning occupier’.
The officers were previously called ‘Abbey Gate’ before being renamed ‘Abbey Wharf’ during a refurbishment project in 2019.
Now, the development company Mountley Ltd has applied to convert the entire building into 78 flats.
This would involve converting the four floors of office space to provide 27 studio flats, 43 one-bed and eight two-bed apartments.
Future occupants would be able to make use of 45 car parking spaces and 108 bicycle spaces, which would all be contained at the basement level.
The basement would also contain eight 1,100 litre general waste bins, six 1,100 litre recycling bins, and three food waste bins.
The conversion project has been submitted as a prior approval application.
Since 2013, the conversion of offices into housing has been considered permitted development following reforms by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government.
Conversions such as at Abbey Wharf require the applicant to inform the local planning authority, Reading Borough Council.
You can view the application by typing reference PL/25/0642 into the council’s planning portal.
Mountley is also engaged in the project to bring the Bristol & West Arcade at the end of Friar Street into use by converting the upper floors into 26 flats.
