Latest plans unveiled for key location on Bristol Harbourside

A new office block, with retail spaces, a takeaway and wine bar could be built on Bristol Harbourside under the latest proposals for a landmark spot.

Designs for the site between Lloyds Amphitheatre and the historic dockside buildings along Bordeaux Quay were first unveiled in 2020 and developers are now seeking planning permission for the six-storey building.

Initially set to include a hotel, the £60m proposals for Waterfront Place from London-based firm Railway Pension Nominees Ltd (Railpen) are now focused on office space across the top five floors, with retail, food and drink offerings on the ground floor.

The developers behind the building design say it would provide “robustness, solidity and an anchor in the townscape at this pivotal position in the city”.

However, several people have lodged objections to the plans, with one resident describing the proposed building as a “bland, monotonous eyesore that will dominate the surrounding area and degrade the visual landscape rather than enhance it”.

The six-storey Waterfront Place could be built between Lloyds Amphitheatre and the historic buildings along Bordeaux Quay – image courtesy of AHMM

If granted permission, the new building would be constructed on currently unused land – the only empty plot since the start of the Canon’s Marsh regeneration project. The freehold of the plot is owned by Bristol City Council and there is an agreement to grant a long lease to Railpen, according to planning documents.

The proposed development would be car-free, with the exception of five disabled parking spaces to be provided in the nearby Millennium Square car park, and will include 238 bike parking spaces.

Waterfront Place could be built on the vacant plot between Lloyds Amphitheatre and the buildings on Bordeaux Quay – photo by Martin Booth

The architects behind the project, Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (AHMM), have an office in Bristol on Queen Charlotte Street near Queen Square and are also behind The Assembly development on Narrow Plain. London-based developer Bell Hammer is leading the project.

Railpen’s Richard Van Lente said of the plans: “We are hugely excited to be bringing forward these landmark plans that will provide a fantastic new office scheme that completes Millennium Square and enhances the Harbourside for the local community and businesses alike.

“As well as creating hundreds of new jobs, we are determined to make this one of the most sustainable buildings in the South West, targeting BREEAM Outstanding.”

The developers state: “The proposed development strikes an appropriate balance between providing a positive and robust new focal feature in the townscape; and being responsive enough to its context to reflect, complement and gesture towards the best of the existing townscape.”

Objectors disagree, with one describing the scheme as “a soulless monstrosity for commercial purpose is not what the people of Bristol and the historic harbourside need or want”.

German architects Behnisch, Behnisch and Partner won an international design competition to design the Harbourside Centre in the late 1990s – image courtesy of Behnisch

The prominent site was once earmarked for one of the most ambitious schemes in Bristol never to get off the drawing board.

In the late 1990s, designs for the Harbourside Centre for the Performing Arts were hailed as Bristol’s answer to the Sydney Opera House – a strikingly modern multi-million-pound concert hall and performance venue due to be completed by 2002.

Some £5m of public and private money was spent on the project, including on the construction of the Millennium Square car park, before the Arts Council pulled the plug on their funding, relegating the scheme to the history books.

It is also a site set to see further changes, with Lloyds Bank announcing plans to sell the curved Canons House overlooking the Lloyds Amphitheatre and new proposals to redevelop the building currently home to Za Za Bazaar.

Several people have lodged objections to the plans for Waterfront Place – image courtesy of AHMM

Main image courtesy of AHMM

Read more: Landmark Bristol building to be sold

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