A building on Carrington Street which has spent years empty and boarded up is being sold.
Nottingham City Council has put forward plans to sell the building at 18-26 Carrington Street featuring ‘Windows of Opportunity’ artwork.
The empty site, opposite the Broadmarsh car park, is renowned as one of the symbols of the area’s decline, having stood lifeless for years in a prominent spot while plans to develop the Broadmarsh area dragged on.
The decision to sell the site, which also includes 37 Canal Street, is expected to be rubber-stamped on July 1.
The council owns the freehold on the property and is seeking to sell it so retail units can be created on the ground floor and office space above.
The planned sale follows last week’s announcement that the car park will be closed next month and completely demolished and rebuilt.
Eyecatcher’s Opticians sits next to the building that will be sold and Carolann Moore, who works there, said the company has not received any further information about what will happen to the area except for the notice of the demolition, but welcomes changes.
She said: “It should have been done 10 years ago – when you look at the bus station and the car park it looks disgusting.
“I think pedestrianising Carrington Street will be better but a lot of drivers won’t be happy with that and the traffic disruption it will cause.”
She said the opticians has already been disrupted by work to remove an electricity substation. The Carrington Street pedestrian entrance to the bus station is shut while Western Power Distribution carry out the work, which is due to finish this week.
“We’ve already experienced disruption with the noise of the work that has taken place so far but to make the bus station better, it’s something you would expect,” she said.
“As for pedestrians, I don’t think they are fully aware they can still go down Carrington Street – they see the big silver panels and it looks like it’s blocked off.
“There are no signs saying pedestrians can go down the road and one person I spoke to genuinely thought it was closed off.”
A total of 870 parking spaces will be lost during the rebuild of the car park and bus station.
Plans released after the decision to demolish show a total of 280 new car parking spaces being provided at open air car parks on Canal Street during the demolition and rebuild.
But Broadmarsh has room for 1,150, meaning there will be a loss of 870 while the new multi-storey car park is built.
The entire project is expected to transform the area by 2020, but also create disruption for motorists and bus passengers.
First Stop 4, an independent newsagents inside the bus station, will continue to trade until the date of demolition.
The company will stop trading there when the refurbishment takes place but the City Council confirmed it will return once the renovation has finished.
