A PLAN to turn a listed city centre office building into flats and promises to repair the 19th-century facade has been given the go-ahead by a Welsh city council.
Cardiff Council has approved plans to turn a Grade II-listed office building in the city centre into four flats.
The application reads: “As a result of declining demand for city centre offices the brief had been to convert as much of the building as sensible to residential use to ensure its continued occupation.”
The bid was submitted by Garrison Barclay Estates, the sole owner of the building at 16 Windsor Place.
In addition to a residential conversion within the building works also include a rear extension and the replacement of windows with a more traditional style at the front of the property along with a railing across the front.
The application reads: “[The work includes] includes repairing and reinstating the 19th-century terraced façade by reintroducing a traditionally-detailed sash window to the ground-floor office, reinstating double-hung sashes at first floor to replicate others in the terrace (creating a return to that originally conceived); whilst, replicating railings to the front.”
The current rear of the building is called “much less elegant” than the rest of the property and “given over to car parking and rubbish” with “no design features that are worthy of consideration” in planning documents.
Despite the changes to the front and back of the property the application reads: “The overriding requirement of the brief has been to respect the character of the building as this is its main selling point.”
In the pre-application period a “residential unit” was included at the back of the property but “this was deleted following unfavourable comments within the pre-app response”, according to the applicant.
Regarding the front of the building planning documents read: “Notwithstanding its listed status the Windsor Place elevation, particularly at ground floor, looks poor when compared to its neighbours with a number of non-period features.”
The property is located within the Windsor Place Conservation Area which Cadw, the Welsh Government’s historic environment service, describes as having “the best preserved mid-19th century houses in Cardiff centre”.
