New plans submitted for Leeds Lumiere site

Consultancy firm EC Harris was handed the task earlier this year of making the mothballed Wellington Street site more attractive to potential investors and occupiers.

Now, as part of that push, the firm has put in an application to Leeds City Council seeking planning permission for two new buildings on the land.

The buildings would be 11 and eight storeys tall respectively and together they would cover around 262,000 sq ft.

Facing onto both Wellington Street and Whitehall Road, the development would be constructed around a piece of public open space.

EC Harris says the scheme would primarily aim to provide “top quality” office accommodation.

It also says, though, that there could be ground-floor retail space as well as a hotel in the smaller building.

Roger Thompson, development management partner at EC Harris said: “The development plans for the site which have taken shape are the product of several months’ hard work and collaboration from an excellent team.

“The result is a design of a scale and quality commensurate with the importance of the site and the city.

“We look forward to continuing to work with Leeds City Council to ensure the application submitted is approved as soon as possible.”

Lumiere’s 54 and 32-storey glass towers would have made it the tallest residential development in western Europe.

Construction work began in December 2007 but by the summer of the following year it had stalled due to the credit crunch.

The KW Linfoot firm that was the driving force behind the project went into administration just over six months later.