Work is under way to demolish buildings and clear land to make way for 150 homes and new commercial space next to Plymouth’s £6.2m waterfront boulevard.
Demolition experts have been tearing down the former HSL furniture showroom building at Millbay and will also clear the adjacent Millbay Car Sales site.
The work is part of Plymouth City Council plans to develop the land between Martin Street and Bath Street into homes and commercial units.
Workers from Devon’s Gilpin Demolition have been active on the ex-HSL site since December 2021, after the council approved plans for a six-week project which began with asbestos removal and has now moved to the full demolition phase.
HSL moved its showroom to Strode Retail Park, Huxley Close, Plympton, to make way for the redevelopment of the Millbay land.
Documents submitted to the council said: “The demolition of the building is a part of the wider plan for the regeneration of the Millbay area, as allocated in the Joint Local Plan.”
Another document said: “This scheme is integral to the city’s emerging Plymouth Plan strategy to attract inward investment to the city centre in the Millbay area.”
Matt Ward, Plymouth City Council’s head of strategic development projects, told Business Live in 2021 that the entire site, where the Hub music venue and an office building once stood next to the HSL building, is allocated in the Joint Local Plan for residential use, but there is expected to be a small amount of commercial space too.
In a briefing to business leaders in late 2021, Mr Ward said the council was working in partnership with Plymouth Community Homes and had secured £5m from Homes England towards development of the area.
“We will progress with this project for 150 homes delivered by Plymouth Community Homes,” he said.
Plymouth City Council has been planning to start work on construction in mid-2022 and has been working on a planning application which will transform the area into residential and commercial space.
Mr Ward said the land is allocated in the Joint Local Plan for residential use, but there is expected to be a small amount of commercial space too.
Work on the £6.2m boulevard was completed in June 2021 - just as work started on the Moxy hotel which will sit alongside it. The planned housing will go up opposite the hotel site, where the structure is now rising out of the ground..
Work on Millbay Boulevard transformed Bath Street from a down at heel backwater lane into a tidy link between the city centre and the Millbay dockside.
Meanwhile, construction work started on the £9m Moxy-branded hotel which will rise up from what was the car park of Plymouth Pavilions.
Mitnija, one of Lithuania’s largest construction firms, said in mid-2021 that it aims to have the six-storey building complete within 14 months.
The 220-bedroom hotel was granted planning permission in January 2019.The company behind the project is Vastint from Holland.
It will face onto the boulevard, where demolition work started on the redundant buildings in 2019. Creating this link was a long-held aspiration and the council acquired the properties to enable its delivery. An avenue of stone pine trees now runs along the link as well as there being a new square at the Union Street end of the boulevard.
Hardy plants and shrubs that are more tolerant of salty sea air have been planted in rain gardens which will be irrigated using rain and surface water from all paved areas in the new scheme.
Beneath the beds are underground tanks capable of storing 240 tonnes of water - that’s equal to seven shipping containers - as part of a new sustainable urban drainage system (SUDs). This means that at times of very heavy rainfall and high tides in this area the community will be protected from localised flooding. At the same time the water will be used more wisely to irrigate new plants and trees.
The former Bath Street is now twice as wide going from 8.5m to 16.5m and has 1,545sq m - that’s 1.5 football pitches - of new public space. The entire project, which also included the demolition of the two old footbridges from Union Street and Western Approach and supporting associated works, is valued at £6.2m.
