A nightclub which was shutdown in summer amid allegations that a 14-year-old boy raped a woman in the toilets is applying to reopen in a new guise.
Bloom was stripped of its licence following a July 25 hearing, where Manchester city councillors were told by police that door staff at the venue told a male customer to ‘have a good one mate’ as he entered the men’s toilets with another woman. It was one of several ‘very serious incidents’, the panel was told , which included other physical and sexual assaults.
However, plans submitted to the council show ambitions to reopen Princess House, where Bloom was, as offices, a coffee shop, and a nightclub. The building is grade II listed.
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Currently, two clubs can inhabit the venue — with one in the basement, and one on the ground floor. However, developers WBI Group are planning on replacing the ground floor with a coffee shop that can double as a ‘cocktail bar’, albeit on ‘limited occasions… for example during Pride week’.
A letter from Lambert Smith Hampton, acting on behalf of WBI, added: “The intention for the ground floor is for a flexible coffee shop use (Use Class E). This will be open to the public, not just office workers from the upper floors.
“It will have booths that can be used for informal meetings and will be a supportive co-working environment, but this will be managed purely through the coffee shop. On limited occasions, the nightclub uses will also extend to include a cocktail bar use in this space, for example during Pride week and other times when occupancy exceeds the lower ground floor capacity.
“This will be in the early hours of the morning and will be managed to make sure that the space is vacated and cleared well before the offices open. The ground floor use is therefore an important ‘hub’ for the building, helping to bring the different uses together and to manage them. The overall feel of the space will be similar to a hotel lobby.”
Manchester City Council has yet to make a decision on the change of use application.
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