A developer has been given permission to create 14 studio apartments for students above a shop a Nottingham shopping streets.
The studio flats will inhabit the upper floors of 28 to 30 Lister Gate, one of the main thoroughfares linking the south of the city to the centre.
A new mezzanine floor will be built between the first and second floors to help provide more natural light to the inside of the building from the existing windows.
Budget retail store Stock Giant is currently based on the ground floor.
Nottingham City Council said Gape Equity Ltd could push forward with its plans on October 26.
Planning documents say: “The studios would range in size from 20 square metres to 31.4 square metres.
“Natural light would be provided to two of the studios by a proposed light
well, giving light to one studio on the first floor and one on the proposed mezzanine level.
“Two studios on the second floor would be set above the light well. Communal accommodation is proposed on the first and second floors as part of the development.”
The Art Deco-style building was originally constructed between 1936 and 1937 by in-house architects for FW Woolworth Ltd.
It was later altered in the late 20th Century, when the steel framed structure’s stone façade was reconstituted.
Lister Gate is ib the Old Market Square Conservation Zone and many buildings have listed status.
The shopping street has experienced a period of decline, with a number of shops closing as a result of the ongoing Broad Marsh redevelopment and the Covid pandemic.
According to plans, the shop frontage will also be altered.
“The ground floor retail unit would be partially sub-divided to create an entrance off Lister Gate that would access a stairway to the upper floor,” documents add.
“This would see the introduction of a vertical post, a glazed door and side light with a glazed window above, which would sit partly below an upper vertical bay feature of the building.
“Off the entrance corridor at ground floor level, a bin store and cycle storage for 14 bicycles are proposed.”
A student management plan, a noise assessment and traffic management plan must all be developed and submitted to the council as conditions for the scheme’s approval.
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