Planning permission was received on Friday 30 September for designs by Red Box Design Group for the conversion of the iconic ‘Art Deco’, ‘Listed Grade II’ Newcastle Co-operative Building to hotel, retail and leisure uses.

The complicated mixed-use project has many parallels with Red Box’s own offices in Newcastle upon Tyne, which were converted from the old Victorian Post Offices near Newcastle’s St Nicholas Cathedral, particularly in the way the design works with the most important historic elements to bring imaginative new uses to the building, breathing new life into the beautiful historic fabric, whilst at the same time removing later poor quality extensions to create a new landscaped inner city space.

The sensitive and potentially contentious restoration and redevelopment received planning approval in only 8 weeks from the date of the application, showing the value of suitable experience, proper consultation and sensible dialogue with the city planning officers and English Heritage in particular. More than anything else it reflects the pride, care and respect that we have for our native City of Newcastle upon Tyne and its historic urban fabric.

 

Original arcade discovered in Newcastle Co-operative Art Deco masterpiece.

redboxdesigngroup proposals for the restoration and conversion of the Newcastle Co-operative buildings on Newgate Street have been submitted for planning. The building has been empty for several years except for a small area at ground floor – the Co-op’s retained food hall. It is an iconic Art Deco design in Newcastle’s townscape designed by L.G. Ekins in 1932, but has become seriously at risk due to the lack of proper maintenance.

The project was initially won in competition in 2005 working for the Co-op and we have worked on many permutations of different uses over the interregnum. Merchant Place Developments were approached when the Co-op put the building on the market in 2009 and have now agreed terms with the Co-op.

The Red Box approach is built upon the hugely successful approach used at our own offices - the Red Box development, keeping what is of real value and stripping away many years of poor quality extensions at the rear to create new inner city spaces and the potential for some new construction.

The proposals include a 231 bedroom hotel, the Co-op foodhall retained and 5 other retail or restaurant uses at ground floor, with a gym in the basement, and all tenants but one have already committed to the scheme.

We have spent many hours researching the development to understand the design logic and get under its skin to allow us to design sensitively around the original fabric, assisted by the expertise of John Grundy, local historian, especially with his detailed knowledge of the history of the Co-op in the North-East. The site was developed over many years and several phases. The oldest remaining part of the building is in fact the 1902 red brick Edwardian building on St Andrew’s Street (formerly known as Darn Crook). It includes a number of mysterious elements, former grand stairs and spaces that have become unused and in some cases concealed.

redbox discovery

There is one remarkable discovery. We gradually became aware of a number of mysterious piers, not shown on original survey drawings and with little structural logic. Archive drawings showed a historic arcade that everyone assumed had been lost in the remodelling of the 1902 building at the time of the 1932 development. Creating small holes in the piers showed a number of beautiful ornate cast iron columns still in-situ – not quite Howard Carter’s Tutankhamun moment but quite special all the same! Further opening up has shown the whole structure to be intact. It will of course be retained as a central feature in the development, along with the grand stair that originally served it.