The council hopes this will “raise the ambition” of young people and boost the local economy and agreed to split the as-yet unknown costs with UoP to incentivise them to choose the borough.
While a final location has yet to be decided, it was revealed at a meeting of cabinet leaders last week, 13th January, that officers have suggested recently council-acquired Central House in Hoe Street.
The report reads: “Officers are currently in advanced discussion with University of Portsmouth and their partners to scope out the potential of the site being redeveloped as the main teaching campus for the University.
“Should that not materialise, officers are concurrently working up designs for a mixed-use redevelopment of the site, providing new affordable homes and a minimum of 2,000sqm of employment space.”
Central House was first built in 1991 as office space for property company Strettons, until it moved to a larger site in Leytonstone in 2019.
While a planning application to turn the site into a hotel was agreed in March 2019, this never materialised and the site was sold to the council last year.
A business case created by council officers at the time of the purchase suggested it could be used to create at least 60 new flats.
An earlier version of this article used a photo of the wrong Central House
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