Aparthotel to replace prominent city cinema

The proposed design and application were approved by Oxford councillors on Tuesday

A prominent city centre cinema will be demolished and replaced by a new aparthotel after councillors approved a plan.

The Odeon in Oxford’s George Street has been used as a cinema since the 1930s but the chain’s lease is due to end.

A £37m scheme will see the building replaced by a new complex, which will include about 145 hotel apartments on its upper floors with a cultural space managed by Makespace Oxford below.

Oxford City Council’s planning committee approved the application at a meeting on Tuesday.

An aparthotel with about 145 rooms and a reception on the ground floor can now be built

Alex Hollingsworth, whose Carfax ward includes the cinema, said the visual impact of the plan will be “quite significant” but that it would bring “other significant benefits”.

He said the new building would benefit Gloucester Green and that demolition of the “miserable, blank wall” along George Street is “75 years overdue – or more”.

It would also help to cut the number of private homes used for short-term lets, which are “seriously detrimental” to the city’s social fabric, he added.

The closure of the Odeon will leave Oxford with four cinemas: Curzon Oxford at the Westgate Centre, the Phoenix Picturehouse in Jericho, The Ultimate Picture Palace in Cowley Road and Vue at the Ozone Leisure Park.