Hotel and luxury apartment plans revealed for coal exchange

I worked in the Coal Exchange till last year and was quite friendly with Mike - who ran it - as my business partner was his legal representative. I've had extensive guided tours of the buildings and many parts are in a very sorry state. The basement is partially flooded and the east and north wings were, last time I saw them, dangerous in many places.

£40 million seems like a small sum to renovate the CE to an acceptable standard but if this plan comes off then the whole of central Butetown may follow in being regenerated.

I imagine large parts of the most damaged areas might just be gutted and rebuilt internally, rather than 'restored'. No idea whether £40 million is enough or not. The old Macob scheme for it was £20 million I think, so its more than they were planning to spend!

I like the idea of this but do wonder about the feasibility. Parts of the outside of the building look very crooked.

I imagine large parts of the most damaged areas might just be gutted and rebuilt internally, rather than 'restored'. No idea whether £40 million is enough or not. The old Macob scheme for it was £20 million I think, so its more than they were planning to spend!

If you look at the Macob scheme (c.2003) that went to planning (and I believe approved), it actually called for the demolition of large sections of the building, in particular the West Elevation, which is not of the same style or quality as the main facade and is in a very poor state. In that section of the scheme, the West Elevation was to be demolished and rebuilt in ghastly modern style. So, they weren't planning on spending all of that sum on restoration work.

£40million sounds much more resonable than £20million to me, althought that was 13 years ago now. Also, buildings like this can end up being a money pit if you're not careful! It depends entirely on how much of the original features they are going to "restore" or "rebuild/replace". It also depends on how much the M+E services burn up, that stuff is expensive!

I hope this people who are campaigning against Signature Living take a good look at these photos:
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/local ... d-11192088

Yes, there should be propper process to developments, it should be done sympathetically to the building etc. But given the last serious proposal for this building came 13 years ago (which involved significant demolition), does anyone think this building will be standing in its entirity in another 13 years unless serious action is taken now?

I don't see too many other people coming forward to spend £40million on this building.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-36093246

Stephen Doughty is starting to pee me off! Now I don't doubt his heart is in the right place here, but he doesn't seem to have looked into the intricacies of the issue.

A number of expressions of interest were given and according to one of the campaign/commercial groups involved (I think Coal Exchange limited) the other proposals involved demolishing and replacing bits of it with new builds. Here we have a commercial venture that proposes to retain the full building, that has a track-record in Liverpool of undertaking conversions of historic buildings.

Halting it, holding a "public enquiry".. to me see this seems like a recipe for yet more delays, and a real risk of the building getting to a state where it just cannot be saved. Not only would we lose a great building, but an opportunity to act as a catalyst for the surrounding "old Butetown" area.

Now in less cash-strapped times, perhaps there would have been a chance for public funding for a regeneration of this building, or a public-private partnership. Those times are long gone. Any redevelopment will have to be private sector. Can we risk abandoning the first proper private-sector scheme to emerge for around a decade?

http://planning.cardiff.gov.uk/online-a ... =firstPage

Planning application in, including a DAS. I'm having trouble loading it up on my computer though - it could be a massive, massive file!

Update: it opened eventually, and to be honest, not much of interest. Key points about the plans:
- 2 restaurants on lower and upper ground floors.
- linked to lower ground floor restaurant is whats described as a "heritage area", which I imagine is a small exhibition on the Coal Exchange
- a lower ground floor gym/spa
- the main hall to be kept as an events/wedding hall, with a bar and ancillary space next to it
- hotel rooms/suites on the LG, UG, 1st and 2nd storeys, with a few rooms in the 3rd floor (I guess eaves), with "potential" additional rooms on the 3rd floor, I guess if needs arise/conversion is cost effect.

The plans show hotel suites/rooms taking up virtually the whole of the building (so nothing left for office occupiers, say). Thee wil

So did anyone see the BBC4 documentary, part of which was regarding the coal exchange?

Watch it on iplayer.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... ng-britain

Personally, I thought his obvious disdain for the development of Cardiff Bay was risible. I remember the post industrial wasteland of Butetown and most of the docks.

It was a deeply annoying programme - self indulgent and narcissistic. To be honest I enjoyed the Liverpool section but lost interest when it came to Cardiff where the guy was pretty ill-informed.

Slightly odd programme. Good to see Neil McEvoy having his say as usual.