Could Leisure Entire world be bulldozed to make way for significant new location?

The elaborate on West Quay Highway has been unveiled as the website where by council chiefs want to construct a rival to Bournemouth Intercontinental Centre.

It is the hottest piece of a masterplan to turn Southampton into the “funds metropolis of the South” and could boast a lodge, restaurants, flats and general public place.

Southampton Town Council leader Simon Letts was on internet site yesterday to set out his vision for the centre, which would draw in star bands and comedians as nicely as political and academic conferences.

He said: “Southampton has a loaded heritage and industrial previous, and it now wants to be a modern-day, lively European town and the money of the south of England.”

Comparing the prepared centre to London’s O2 Arena, he claimed it would link with other developments to change the waterfront into a “vibrant public house fairly than remaining a collection of streets bombed by the Luftwaffe and reconstructed right after Earth War Two.”

He additional: “Leisure World’s searching a bit tired now.

“That, as a flat web site, has a specified value but there is obtained to be probable for redevelopment there.”

Warehouses off West Quay Street presently used by John Lewis could also be flattened to make way for the centre. All the land is council owned.

Cllr Letts explained charges would operate into the “hundreds of hundreds of thousands” but some parts of the undertaking could be bankrolled by the £1bn Solent devolution deal, with dining places and retail encouraging to fund the convention services.

Council officers will analyse the scheme’s feasibility more than the next nine months, with formal options coming alongside one another before the conclude of 2017.

It is hoped the plan would open up together with the £450m Royal Pier enhancement, at present slated for 2023.

Leisure World opened in 1997 and was billed as the greatest pleasure sophisticated of its form in Western Europe.

At start it boasted Jumpin Jaks stay songs bar, Hotshots bowling, nightclubs Diva and Ikon and what was then Odeon’s most important multiplex in the United kingdom.

It is hoped existing tenants like Frankie and Benny’s and Oceana nightclub will shift into the scheme right before Leisure Environment is demolished.

A spokeswoman for Oceana’s parent firm, The Deltic Team, reported: “We are committed to remaining in Southampton and as nevertheless there are no programs to relocate.

“It is really great to see so substantially investment decision in the town and we search ahead to continuing to be section of the lively leisure economic system.”

It is unclear no matter whether Odeon would manage its 13-screen multiplex in a new area, with a 10-display cinema established to open in the West Quay Watermark improvement. Odeon was not able to give remark before the everyday Echo went to push.

A spokesman for Frankie & Benny’s claimed it was “way too early to say” whether it would continue to be in Southampton. Grosvenor Casinos declined to remark although a spokesman for Ask Italian was unavailable previous night time.