‘Second ugliest’ building in town to become flats
A 1960s tower block once voted the second most ugly building in town is being given a makeover as part of plans to turn it into flats.
Colman House, which dominates the centre of Maidstone, has been used as offices for half a century.
But now there are proposals to turn the top seven floors of the nine-storey building into living accommodation.
The new owner of the building, at the junction of Week Street and King Street, is the London-based Wigmore Group. There are a number of shops, including Greggs, on the first and second floors but these will be unaffected by the flats plans. Prior to the conversion, the company has obtained permission to renovate the building with grey aluminium cladding and to renew the windows with smaller double-glazed units
that will allow the large openplan interior office spaces to be sub-divided into individual flats. The bands of brickwork between the floors will remain. Initially, the company also applied to add an extra floor of flats on the roof, but that idea has been abandoned.
The firm has ambitions to create a total of 63 flats, but so far it has obtained detailed planning permission for the conversion of only the second floor, where it
will create six units. For more, visit tinyurl.com/planningKM and use the code 21/506115. Details of the flats conversion can be found under application number 21/502734.
Currently the building is surrounded by protective netting. Colman House was built in 1967. In a Kent Messenger survey in 2014, it was voted second most ugly building in the town. It was runner-up to the Travelodge in St Peter’s Street.