The former headquarters of West Bromwich Building Society, which was to have been transformed into luxury apartments, is up for sale. The Society House building on the corner of High Street and Dartmouth Street has been stripped back to shell condition. Empire Property had planned to transform the art deco building into 105 one and two-bedroom apartments.
Work had started on the 172-year-old building in January 2022, but surveyors Fletcher Bond have now been appointed as joint fixed charge receiver of Society House after the project “suffered some issues”. The seven-storey building, which currently has 62,210 sq ft of space, had been empty since the building society moved to its new headquarters at Providence Place in 2017. It was bought by Empire in April 2018.
The transformation project had originally been due to be completed in the final quarter of 2022. It also included a proposed 7,858 sq ft mezzanine level above the ground floor. The receivers have also been appointed over the adjacent gated surface car park/vacant land extending to approximately 0.
5 acres with parking for approximately 80 cars. Rory Dillon, managing director of Fletcher Bond said: ‘This is an exciting development opportunity in a town currently undergoing a resurgence with ongoing private and Towns Fund investment. The property is in a great location in West Bromwich town centre with excellent transport links to Birmingham.
“We are already fielding good interest in the scheme from local and regionally based developers due to the high demand for apartments from investors and owner occupiers alike as well as the really strong rental fundamentals in the areas where there is a real shortage of the type of high-quality product which is proposed to be delivered”. Interested parties are being invited to speak to Fletcher Bond with a number of viewing days already arranged over the next few weeks. There is potential for the apartments scheme to generate annual rent of around £1 million.
More than 70 per cent of the apartments had been pre-sold by LH1 London who are the master agent for the development. The acquisition of Society House was Empire Property's first in the Midlands and was the fourth collaboration between LH1 London and Empire Property..
