Encore Ramada Hotel

 Ramada Encore changing the view of Charles Street

Encore sign on the side of the new hotel

 

Ramada Encore - A towering and attractive hotel

22 Storey Student Flats Eastern Blvd UPDATE

Back in May we talked about the 21 Storey Student Flats Eastern Blvd, which is now 22 storeys in size. In this article we went through the project details and how this £13 million project looks set to create an iconic structure in the city.

At the time the ground had been leveled and core drilling was in place. Today the project is fully underway and the 369 student flats are set to be ready for September 2012 (this year) to tie in with the new academic year for students.

Below are various photos showing current construction from various vantage points. The building is a large structure and as such can be seen from the King Power Stadium and hospital among other areas.

Potential Belgrave Flyover Demolition

There has been talk over the last few months that the Belgrave flyover taking you onto Melton Road when coming from the city may be demolished. While in the early stages the idea is that by removing the flyover it will unite Melton Road with the city, increasing traffic flow and custom between the city centre and Melton Road.

Many Melton Road business owners welcome the move as it is felt that the flyover is an eyesore and if removed it will increase the vision and overall aesthetic appeal of the area. Likewise the council is thinking about this move because the concrete structure is starting to suffering with fatigue and wear and tear, like any concrete structure of its age. This means that maintenance costs will be expensive in the long term.

The council has said of the plan to remove the Belgrave flyover:

" [It is an] idea that's very much worth further consideration".

"The two solutions that we would look at, if we took the flyover down, is how much traffic would we get through a very much revised junction underneath and what traffic would be diverted down other ways into Leicester,"

Personally I feel the flyover is not aesthetically appealing but it does a very good job. In fact I think that if the flyover was to be removed it would reduce the potential of people visiting Melton Road from the city because the traffic build up on the roundabout underneath could potentially be a nightmare.

Having used the flyover on a regular basis given that I personally live in the city centre, the view of having to use the roundabout underneath with extra traffic from those that use the flyover included fills me with dread.

A review should be done at a renovation of the flyover and an architectural design built in to make it a colourful and aesthetically appealing gateway to the Golden Mile so it not only delivers its designed purpose, but also becomes an attractive feature at the same time.


View Larger Map

Leicester Blue Building

The Leicester Blue Building has become iconic in the city for what some may call the wrong reasons. Found right near the train station it is an imposing building that all people visiting the city by train will see. The building was painted blue as an undercoat before being clad in a greay cover, unfortunately the company controlling the development never finished and left the Leicester blue building in its base blue coat.

The bottom couple of floors are used as a Premier Inn hotel.

 Side view with part clad small building

Front view of full blue tower

Council New Walk Centre to be Demolished

A while ago a fire tore through a section of one of the councils New Walk Centre buldings, upon the fire being put out it was found the offices were unsafe and many of the council workers were moved elsewhere. Since this time the council have been deliberating as to what to do, move offices elsewhere or look to rebuild the New Walk Centre.

The council has now decided that the best move would be to demolish to New Walk Centre council offices and rebuild them because they need just under 21,000 square metres of space that cannot be located elsewhere.

While this is a great move as it gives the Council a chance to develop an iconic building in the city centre to be used for the council, there is a drawback. The drawback is that to take down the council offices before rebuilding can take place there is the potential for roads around the offices to be shut for up to 5 months. The reason for this is because the offices contain asbetos so cannot simply be detonanted, in fact it means removing everything inside and taking the building down a bit at a  time.

A gentleman who works for a local demolition firm believe the cost of taking down the two buildings would be in the region of £1 million to £2 million.

The council has said:

"There are about 1,200 staff currently at New Walk Centre, which is about two-thirds of its capacity, with a number of staff already having been moved out to reduce the stress on key areas of the building. The other city council-owned buildings are already occupied close to their maximum capacity.

"Even taking into account predicted job losses and redundancies over the coming years, there will still be about 2,450 staff working in council-owned city centre buildings, which need about 20,830 square metres of space.

"Without New Walk Centre, we are left with only about 14,300 square metres of office space, meaning we are short by 6,600 square metres."

Humberstone Gate East Roadworks

As mentioned previously in a post about Humberstone Gate East, I do feel something needed to be done and now it has thanks to the Council and funding from the EU.

The work is at a cost of just over a million pounds and is changing the face of Humberstone Gate East forever. The roadworks are already underway with the fountain having already been taken up and a new roadway being developed. What I did find interesting is that when they took up the paving slabs on the pedestrian area the old road was showing underneath, double yellow lines and all.

The work will involve creating a new road running through Humberstone Gate East for traffic to flow out of the city meaning the listed building used as a taxi headquarters will be situated between two roads.

While many have not liked the prospect of Humberstone Gate East losing its fountain and pedestrian area, me being one of them to a certain extent, the new development is starting to take shape and will really compliment the area.

The pavement is still going to be wide for pedestrians and the central area where the listed building sits is looking nice with new paving along the centre. The new development looks set to improve the overall look and ambience of the area and will hopefully mean more people travel down Humberstone Road East improving business potential and the overall look as more money is brought into the area.

Below are current works on the Humberstone Gate East new development:

21 Storey Student Flats Eastern Blvd

Back in 2008 the first planning permission was sought to build an iconic building varying from two to twenty one storeys incorporating 369 student flats and a car park. The building was set to replace the old Brewin factory that was situated on the land before it was ruined by fire.

Since 2008 the whole project has stalled and revised planning permissions were put back to the council late 2009 to early 2010 and were conditionally approved in November 2010.

The client wishing to build this project is called Megaclose and is found in Nottingham while the designers are Maber of Leicester. The project is believed to cost around £13 million in total but this will deliver a building the city can be proud of.

This project is an interesting one as the design that has been put forward is one that is getting many interested because of its iconic nature as shown in the picture attached to this article.

As of today, Saturday 28th May 2011, the area for this building project has been levelled and a core drill was at the site sampling the ground for foundation work.

As more information comes to light on this interesting, but stop start project I will write more.