WETHERSPOONS is set to invest £4 million revamping an historic Scottish building “to the quality it was in days gone by”.
The former Waverley Picture House in Glasgow’s southside, which is A-listed and sits within the Shawlands Cross preservation area, is due to be refurbished by the pub chain.
The new venue is expected to replace the Sir John Stirling Maxwell on Kilmarnock Road, which closed earlier this year. It was part of Shawlands Arcade, which is set to be redeveloped with planning permission in principle granted in March.
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On Friday, Wetherspoons moved a step closer to its replacement venue after securing permission to alter the premises licence for the Moss Road site – but bosses have yet to confirm when work will begin or when the pub will open.
Glasgow’s Licensing Board heard how the firm will invest £4m in revamping the old Waverley Picture House building – which later housed the Waverley Tea Rooms and Tusk nightclub (shown below). Around 60 to 70 staff are expected to be employed once the venue is open.
Archie MacIver, the licensing lawyer representing Wetherspoons, said the licence variation would “take out the nightclub-related elements and adapt it into more of a public house type licence in the traditional Wetherspoon style”.
The firm removed live entertainment from the licence and brought forward the closing time to midnight. The pub would have a total capacity of 680 persons.
MacIver said: “The applicants don’t need any introduction, they have a number of premises within your honours’ jurisdiction. Until recently they had one within this locality, the Sir John Stirling Maxwell in Shawlands Arcade.
“These premises closed and the new site, which is the purpose of this application, was acquired some time back. The premises that closed were actually the second Wetherspoons in Glasgow and it celebrated its 25th anniversary just before it closed.”
He added the £4m redevelopment of the Moss Side Road venue would “bring back a very handsome building to the quality it was in days gone by”.
The A-listed building on Moss Side Road, which was owned by G1 Group – now the Scotsman Group, has been empty since 2017. It previously housed the Waverley Picture House, which opened in 1922.
Plans for a Wetherspoons on the site were approved by Glasgow City Council in 2020.
The building was given an A listing in 1993. Historic Environment Scotland says: "An unusual design with a striking domed entrance corner, the former Waverley Cinema is an important part of the streetscape.
"It is an early purpose-built cinema, an increasingly rare building type in a city closely associated with the genre. [Architects] Watson, Salmond and Gray were more associated with commercial and hospital work and this may have been their only cinema design."
It adds: "Information from the Cinema Theatre Association suggests that interior features remain, particularly plasterwork and ironmongery to the foyer and barrel-vaulted auditorium."
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