A repossessed York shop looks set to come back to life as a café – with holiday flats above.
Number 13 Low Ousegate has been empty for some time, and is looking well past its best.
Now plans are in to revitalise both the ground floor retail unit and floors above.
These will see the former shop, last occupied by Ebor Nails Beauty & Spa, become a café, provisionally called Paradise.
A separate entrance would be created to access five holiday apartments on the three floors above, known as the Paradise Flats.
There would be one larger flat on the first floor, then two smaller flats on the second and third floors.
The development would create the equivalent of ten full-time jobs, and the café would open 8am-11pm daily.
Dating from the 1830s, 13 Low Ousegate is Grade II listed. The building was repossessed by the landlords on 3 April 2020, weeks after the first Covid lockdown started.
According to planning documents: “The building has been vacant and decaying in current years.
“The proposed development will make use of the open plan area on the ground floor for a café with a servery towards the back, the upper floors are to be used as individual self-contained accommodation units.
“Overall the conversion of the outbuilding provides the opportunity to transform the building into something that will continue to positively benefit the conservation area rather than falling into complete disrepair.
“The conversion has been carefully considered to retain the existing building fabric in keeping with the surroundings.”
One of the key people behind the scheme is Wael Garas Mikhaiel, who is a director of Italian restaurant Enoteca and the Middle Feast Shawarma takeaway on Lendal.
He is also behind plans to turn number 8 Low Ousegate into a new Moroccan restaurant, The Marrakesh. That is almost opposite the building proposed for Paradise.