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New photos have captured the stunning progress of a multi-million Nottingham project that is replacing what was once voted the ‘ugliest’ building in the city. The Bendigo building, on the corner of Bath Street and Brook Street on the border of the city centre, Sneinton and St Ann’s, was knocked down in 2023, having been vacant for 20 years.
It had previously been been a huge Royal Mail sorting office, which had operated since the 1960s. Decades later construction company GRAHAM is building a £70m student complex where it once stood, with the 13-storey tower set to house 752 students.
The hundreds of students will be housed in studio, four, five and six-bedroom flats, with potential for extra bedrooms to be added in the future. The property will also feature a gym with personal trainers, a multimedia and games lounge, a fully-landscaped garden with outdoor seating areas, car parking, bike storage and two commercial units on the ground floor for shops or other business.
Developer Bricks Group, which bought the approved scheme from Godwin Developments in 2022, has named the under-construction building ‘True Nottingham’. Alongside True Nottingham, which is expected to open in 2025, other current city works-in-progress include Olympian Homes’ 790-bed “Forest Mill” in Alfreton Road, and CODE’s planned 1,400-bed tower block in Glasshouse Street.
During term time, around 60,000 students from the University of Nottingham and Nottingham Trent University descend on the city, with many living in Nottingham. The city council says this number is expected to rise in coming years – and thus, despite the numerous student accommodation buildings that already exist and a number of projects in the pipeline, there is still a shortfall of rooms.
A document published by Nottingham City Council in January utilises a graph showing that the city is expected to have welcomed an extra 5,000-or-so students between January 2024 and the 2025/2026 academic year. In 2016/2017, there were around 20,000 student accommodation rooms in the city – by 2025/2026, it is estimated that there will be 40,000.
The office building which was demolished to make way was named after the famous 19th-century boxer William ‘Bendigo’ Thompson. Plans for the new student accommodation were approved after the developers agreed to pay the council nearly £1 million to pay for local infrastructure upgrades.
