Fresh plans to turn the upper floors of a landmark Bradford building into flats have been submitted to Bradford Council.
The former Brown Muffs department store was built on the corner of Ivegate and Market Street in 1870, and was known more recently as Rackhams.
One of Bradford city centre’s most popular shops, the store shut in 1995.
The ground floor of the building has since been divided into smaller business units, and is currently occupied by Cafe Nero, popular independent business Lefteris Cafe, Nationwide, Betfred and a discount store.
But the building’s upper floors have been empty for years, despite numerous applications to convert the space being approved by planners.
A new application to convert the second and third floor of the building into 34 apartments has now been submitted by Mab Hussain of BFD 1 Development Limited.
Rather than a full planning application, the application is a request to see if the work can be carried out using permitted development rules, which allow empty office space to be converted into residential use without the need for a planning application.
The building is in the centre of Bradford’s new pedestrianisation works, works that have seen Market Street go from being a busy bus route to a pedestrian thoroughfare.
As well as the 34 one-bed flats, the plans show that the redevelopment will include a gym, office space and a private dining room.
The application says: “All highways surrounding the site have recently been pedestrianised. The site has four facades facing south-east onto Market Street, north-east onto Bank Street, northwest onto Tyrrel Street and south-west onto Ivegate.
“The acoustic environment is deemed to be moderate in level and the noise profile is dominated by pedestrian traffic using all four highways.”
There have been several plans to bring the upper floors of the building back into use in the past decade.
In 2017 Stamford Properties were granted planning permission to convert the upper floors of the building into a 69 room “aparthotel”, although work never started and that permission expired.
At the time the development was touted as a “major investment in the city centre and its economy”.
In 2022 the same company was given the green light to convert the third floor of the former department store into 18 flats, but this work also never went ahead.
A decision on the application is expected before the end of the year.
