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Nottingham could house 140 new city centre apartments, Insider can reveal. The Mansion Group has submitted an application to the city council to renovate Bowman House on Talbot Street into student accommodation. Mansion has recently bought the 30,303 sq ft former office building from Mapeley, the Guernsey-based real estate investor and asset management vehicle.

The Nottingham office of King Sturge was involved in putting the deal together, and Matthew Robertson, surveyor at the firm, said he thought the development would take a lump of Grade C office accommodation out of the Nottingham market.

Robertson told Insider: “Bowman House is one of a number of city centre office buildings currently being promoted for conversion to student accommodation. For Nottingham, changing the use of these buildings to student accommodation will help address the over supply of poor quality Grade C office accommodation."

A Head of Terms for the Section 106 agreement states that Mansion will pay a total £103,607. If approved, the existing underground car park will be filled in, and 36 cycle spaces provided for tenants.

Bowman House comprises a four storey detached office building with undercroft parking. The property was constructed in the 1970s. It was most recently used by the Inland Revenue.

At King Sturge’s Property Prediction event in Nottingham in January, Matt Smith, partner at the agent, said: “What will emerge is an underclass of obsolete buildings for which the outlook is bleak. A continued downward trend in rents in the secondary market and extended voids reduce the viability of redevelopment or refurbishment and liquidity will be questionable.”

At the same event, King Sturge said that some secondary stock located around East Midlands universities will be turned into student accommodation helping to reduce the over supply, and pointed out that smart investors will also look at alternative sectors for investment such as student housing, care homes and budget hotels.