Prime Leeds resi site hits the market

Pre-application talks with the council suggest up to 15 storeys would be acceptable at University Centre, Hanover Way with student living or build-to-rent apartments on the table, said JLL.

According to a feasibility study by architect Hawkins\Brown, a PBSA development at the site could yield up to 294 bedspaces, based on a mix of 57% studios and 43% cluster flats.

BTR living, meanwhile, could see the site accommodate 146 flats, based on a possible 57% one-bed flats, 33% two-bed and 10% three-bed.

According to the sale particulars prepared by JLL, Leeds City Council has indicated in pre-application discussions that, in principle, a change of use for the site is acceptable, as would be residential accommodation stepping up from nine or 10 storeys on the Hanover Way side and 13 storeys towards Joseph’s Well.

JLL is seeking offers until Tuesday 22 October. No guide price has been given.

Nine to 15 storeys are considered acceptable. Credit: via JLL

The site is owned by Leeds City College. It sits just off Park Lane on the north-western fringe of Leeds city centre, close to Marlborough Tower, a 17-storey local authority apartment block.

Close to the Little Woodhouse conservation area and the Joseph’s Well office block, the plot sits adjacent to Leeds City College’s Park Lane campus, a short walk from the city’s universities.

The college currently occupies a 33,000 sq ft building on site for office use and teaching space, but will vacate the site by Q4 2025. There is no sub-station on site, power currently being supplied from the adjacent college campus.

The site is known as “the island site” in the emerging design code that will form part of the Little Woodhouse neighbourhood plan, as outlined in documentation from Leeds City Council, which also outlines that initial hopes from the development side had been for either 20 or 25 storeys, before agreement was reached that a 10-15-level scheme would work better as a visual bridge between Marlborough Tower on the southern side and Woodhouse Square and Joseph’s Well to the north.

Further south of the site, a mass of development is planned around the former Yorkshire Post site and surrounding plots in the city’s west end, while Torsion won a consent a year ago for 183 apartments a little further west, at Burley Street.