Radisson Blu hotel takes shape behind facade in Sheffield city centre
and live on Freeview channel 276
Passers-by on Pinstone Street can’t see it yet but a framework of girders is taking shape that will one day be a hotel.
Progress has been rapid since a huge crane was built on the site last month.
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Hide AdSoon the new building will tower over the frontage - all that remains of Palatine Chambers and City Mews. They, along with 1960’s Barker’s Pool House and the Yorkshireman Rock Bar (1790), were demolished to make way for a Radisson Blu hotel set to open next year.
But for now, activity is largely out of sight of the public.
The hotel forms part of the Block ‘A’ redevelopment in the £480m Heart of the City II project which includes a revamp of the former Embrace nightclub on Barker’s Pool - and former Gaumont cinema - into a leisure space.
The taxpayer-funded scheme is being run by Sheffield City Council.
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Hide AdA report by property consultants Montagu Evans states that 18-28 Pinstone Street (Palatine Chambers built in 1893-6) and 30-42 Pinstone Street (City Mews built in 1895), replaced a piecemeal assemblage of buildings including small industrial properties, residences and outbuildings.
They were constructed following the widening of Pinstone Street for tramworks.
Designed by local architects Flockton & Gibbs, they were built for businessman Rueben Thompson comprised four-storey redbrick buildings in the classical style. They have contrasting sandstone dressings and glazed shopfronts at first floor.
The architecture reflects Sheffield’s ‘prosperity and aspiration’ in the Victorian era and even today partly forms one of the main focal points with the city, the Peace Gardens.
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Hide AdThe hotel is set to have a rooftop restaurant with a view over the Peace Gardens.
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Last year, Adela Cristea, head of business development UK & Ireland for Radisson, said: “We’re very excited to be at the forefront of Sheffield’s regeneration project in a fantastic location at the heart of the city, as well as adding this vibrant new property to our selection of Radisson Blu hotels across the UK.”
The site is surrounded by historic buildings including Town Hall Chambers (home to Barclays) Pinstone Chambers (home to the Co-operative bank) and the Salvation Army Citadel - the demolition has exposed an attractive round window at the rear.