Hove businessman Rob Starr has been chosen to build the new King Alfred Leisure Centre and hundreds of homes on the seafront site.
Mr Starr, working with housebuilder Crest Nicholson, was selected ahead of the French group Bouygues for the £400 million scheme.
The Starr Trust and Crest proposal was costed at £166 million against the £307 million Bouygues scheme.
The decision was made this afternoon (Thursday 21 January) by the Brighton and Hove City Council Policy and Resources Committee in a meeting at the Brighthelm Centre.
The decision is subject to planning permission.
The Starr and Crest proposal – for 565 flats – was deemed more likely to gain permission. It is more sensitive to neighbouring homes, with the taller parts of the proposed 18-storey Kingsway site in the south west corner.
Both bids offered significantly more than the 400 flats required on the council-owned site. The land is expected to be handed to the developers as part of the deal.
But the Starr and Crest proposal also offered a cheaper operating model for the leisure centre, making it less likely to fail.
The two bids were marked against a detailed set of requirements – the evaluation criteria – by a project board, advised by consultants from Deloittes.
A number of details remain to be finalised.
Council leader Warren Morgan paid tribute to all those who worked so hard to seal the deal.
The Labour councillor chaired the project board that recommended the Starr and Crest proposal.
His remarks were echoed by his political rivals, Geoffrey Theobald for the Conservatives and Phélim Mac Cafferty for the Greens.
There were reservations about the amount of car parking, the choice of a 25-metre swimming pool rather than a 50m competition pool and the number of bowls rinks.
There are worries about the resulting extra traffic, transport and parking pressures.
Final legal paperwork needs to be completed and the deal remains subject to challenge by Bouygues for ten days.
Rob Starr said: “I’m exhausted after three years of trying to secure this and the nerves leading up to today have been unbearable.
“But my elation at being given this incredible honour of delivering this wonderful project to my city fills me with enough energy to swim the Channel all over again.”
However conflicted I am about the scale of the redevelopment, I cannot help but feel absolutely over the moon for the Starr Trust. I just hope some of their original arts-based thinking and dreaming has survived to take forward to a planning consent.
We all have to bear in mind that the site got precedent-setting consent for 751 flats in up to 26 storeys in 2007. This proposal has 186 fewer flats and is 8 storeys lower at its highest point. I expected a collossus and it will be that, even so.
Consent can only be witheld on planning and policy grounds and this is a tall building node and has been designated as such since 2004.
The Starr Trust is a so worthwhile charity and I am expecting innovative changes to how the leisure centre functions and operates.
I hope for the best.
It’s hard to believe – something going right for a change – and probably a lot to do with Valerie Paynter’s vigilance and persistance.
….and all the people the council had breathing down its neck last time who have not gone away!
Unfortunately, if permitted, the high build will set a planning precedent for the largely untouched Hove sea-frontage. Still, it’s better than Gehry. Let’s hope that future development on Hove seafront doesn’t emulate Brighton’s unaesthetic architectural mish-mash.
Any plans for an ice rink?
Alas the precedent was set in 2007 allowing 26 storeys and 751 flats on the King Alfre tall building node. Design-wise lets hope it really IS better than Gehry (with Piers Gough). No ice rink.
I’m sorry Valerie but the word ‘precedent’ just does not exist in planning law, FACT. Yes some people use it in the hope that it will fool other people into giving way but it just does not have any weight.
Just because someone else got away with it before does not mean they have driven the thin end of the wedge. There is also precedent in the wider context to listen when people say enough is enough.
The concerns of the people must be heard. To add the proposed amount of homes to the area without first addressing the full impact on the local area, community and services is just not on.
And to boot, to put any huge monstrosity on that site is just adding to the insult. Clearly showing the complete disregard planners seem to have for the local community and their concerns, let alone all of us other Bright-Onions.
We (the city) should buy the fields I have outlined, build thousands of good quality HOMES, maisonettes, flats, all with gardens, include shops and schools and the like in the plan, and give the people of this city a future they deserve.
The monies raised will more than cover any reasonable redevelopment/refurbishment of the KA site.
I just don’t know how one ugly towering complex on the wrong location can be seen to be offering the same.
More housing more council tax, better sports/community complex, more income. What’s to object about something much nicer?
Thanks for all your hard work, Valerie! It still sounds like a rather monstrous development but I’m delighted to hear that a sprung dance floor has finally been included…!
Where will all these people park and go to the doctor’s? Nobody seems to give a damn about the quality of life of the people who already live here.
Broadly support this so far, but agree with David, infrastructure to go alongside the many new flats that will be appearing in the not so distant future along the Hove seafront really needs to be addressed – doctors and schools being the priority.
This is Part two of Local Plan.
Hello Natasha and David. I have a public question in for full council next week on exactly this. And suggesting BHCC goes back to the Inspectorate to ask, on infrastructure contraints grounds, for a reduction in the Govt’s level of identified sites demand for housing units to put in the City Plan.
Can you let me know the date, time and venue please.
Mention should be made of former cllr Geoffrey Bowden who set up the Project Board over four years ago so that there would be a chance of something coming forward.
I too am concerned about the impact this will on the local infrstauctre in particular the already overburdend school and GP system. Parking and transport are also an issue we have limited parking and a poorly public transport setup
can somebody link to full detailsof teh development please
Ditto. The Argus headline was “Details of £40 million King Alfred Leisure Centre with 18-storey apartment towers revealed”… revealed to whom?
http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/14223478.Details_of___40_million_King_Alfred_Leisure_Centre_with_18_storey_apartment_towers_revealed/
Lets hope it will include an ice rink and a 50M pool with diving area instead of the usual bog standard money saving rubbish like splashpoiunt
How much social housing at reasonable cost with accessible options?
I also wish the start charity good luck but it is a shame they aren’t willing to support An Ice Rink because this is the one thing this City is lacking and Sonny Keywood aged 12years wrote to Starr charity by email but has never had a reply (he is a child) Yes Geoffrey Bowden you got your way No Ice Rink
Agree with the gentleman who stated an ice rink and a 50M swimming pool with diving would be in order.
Why is it so many are anti ice rink. From all I have read on my Brighton Group an ice rink would be very well received. Give the masses something they can use. The old ice rink in Brighton used to have shows and wrestling.
The Flat Hove Society, [being all residents living between Roman Road in the west and Western street in the East, and Jesmond Road
in the west and Norfolk Road in the east], demand that their access, visually and physically to Hove Lawns and the Ocean is to remain unencumbered from any building higher than four storeys. Also that all councillors who represent these residents act accordingly to prevent any such developments. A revamped King Alfred Sports Centre [without additional apartments] is required, works to be carried out with the minimum of down time.
Seriously, 1x 25m pool plus 1 x 20m pool!!! Have they not heard of a 50m Olympic size pool in Sussex!!! Shame on the council and shame on the developers. Don’t build pools and waste space if you are not swimmers!!! So short sighted and annoying, even more annoying the 20m pool, surely phased out in the eighties?!! 20m? Really!!! Guess there won’t be an Olympic swimmers coming from Sussex anytime soon…….so disappointing!
I have just read this and am seeing the inclusion of a 25m swimming pool rather than a 50m competition pool as very short sighted. If a 50m pool was included it might help Sussex swimming out of the second tier of national swimming and add an economic benefit to the City from the many families that go to major swimming competitions. To see an outside 50m pool being proposed only adds insult to the decision making process. The decision makers should review this one before it is too late. Maybe a visit to a major swimming event would help them.