The owners of the office building that houses Heart FM radio and the BIMM music institute are about to ask council planners to knock the building down and build a new 13-storey office building in its place.
The landmark building will include a restaurant on the tenth floor offering 'dining space with panoramic views across Bristol's harbour out to the west'.
It will be the latest tall building to be proposed in Bristol city centre, and is close to the tallest office block in the Bristol yet, the 17-storey Castle Park View, which is nearing completion just yards away.
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The current building, One Passage Street, is on the corner where St Philip's Bridge crosses the Floating Harbour, diagonally opposite from the Generator Building at Finzel's Reach.
The owner of the building is the LPPI Real Estate Fund, an investment portfolio which invests money on behalf of the council pension funds for Lancashire County, London and Berkshire County councils.
LPPI have already submitted a planning application to change the use of the space in the present building currently taken up by the BIMM institute back to office use - BIMM is looking to move to Stokes Croft soon - but the long term plan is for the four storey building, which occupies a large footprint on Passage Street opposite the Bridge Inn pub, to be completely demolished and a new high rise to be put in its place. The 13-storey building will be taller than the other office buildings currently going up either side of the Floating Harbour - the Assembly buildings on Temple Way and the Halo building on the site of the old Avon Fire Authority HQ.
LPPI have submitted a 'scoping request' to Bristol City Council planners, asking what they should be covering in terms of environmental impact assessment when they do submit a formal planning application, which is expected to arrive at City Hall in the autumn.
The company said the redevelopment would be for a 'new 11 to 13 storey office building of approximately 165,000sqft'.
"Retail, food and beverage and leisure floorspace will be provided on the ground floor," the request added.
"There are also opportunities to explore a rooftop restaurant - a restaurant is proposed at level 10 which will provide approximately 500m2 of dining space with panoramic views across Bristol's harbour out to the west," it added.
"It is intended that a full planning application will be submitted for the redevelopment of this site in due course," LPPI's agents, Savills, said.
The building would be the latest tall building in this area of Bristol - with very high buildings now becoming increasingly proposed, since the Mayor Marvin Rees relaxed the council's planning policies which had previously made it hard for planning permission for them to be granted.
Since then, very tall buildings above ten or 15 storeys have been given planning permission - most notably at Castle Park View, where a 17 storey building, and other smaller ones were erected on the former ambulance HQ in one corner of Castle Park.
Another 17-storey building is currently being built on Bath Road next to Totterdown Bridge, on the A4 in Totterdown, which won permission despite being branded 'a monstrosity'. Others already have planning permission as part of the Redcliffe Quarter development, the Bedminster Green regeneration project and the new University of Bristol campus next to Temple Meads station.
There is opposition, however, with architects, conservationists and local residents decrying what they say is the ruin of Bristol's traditionally low-level skyline with out-of-character and ugly very tall buildings.
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