Concerns have been raised about a set of 17 historic statues which have now not been seen in public for seven years following their removal from a listed Nottingham building. The Elite building is Grade II listed and sits at the corner of Queen Street and Upper Parliament Street in Nottingham city centre . It opened in 1921 as a cinema, before that closed in 1977 and the building was used as a bingo hall.
It was later converted into shops and office space. A range of white statues sat in niches around the top of the structure, including figures representing Shakespeare and Michaelangelo. A planning application to Nottingham City Council in 2017 by the previous owners of the building proposed an extensive restoration project in which the damaged masonry would be repaired and the statues removed for restoration.
A London-based property investor, Steinberger Developments Limited then bought the building for around £3 million and submitted a planning application in 2019 to turn part of the building into luxury student accommodation. But before the statues were restored Steinberger went into liquidation and sold the building around September last year. A Steinberger representative told the Local Democracy Reporting Service they had organised the sale of the building through an agency and did not know the identity of the new owner.
Delays in registering the building’s transfer at the Land Registry mean there is not yet a public record of who the new owner is. It is understood th.