Old Black Country cinema set to be turned into 15-storey 'vertical forest'
A former cinema in the Black Country is set to be demolished to be turned into a 15-storey ‘vertical forest’ clad with bushes and trees – similar to designs in Holland, Italy and China.
The plan, for King’s Cinema in West Bromwich, proposes 77 apartments with ground-floor shops and hundreds of plants on all sides of the building.
If approved by Sandwell Council, the new building will be named Wellbeing Tower and feature Asian, African and European plant species and the employment of ‘flying gardners’ to maintain them.
Plant species would also be tested in wind tunnels before being installed to prevent uprooting in bad weather.
There would be basement residential parking for 45 cars, 92 cycles bays, and a second-floor open-air podium garden.
King’s Cinema, first opened in March 1974, was said to be the first cinema specifically built to host multiple screens at a time when traditional circle and stalls cinemas were in fashion.
In 1989, it became the first independent picture house to introduce a computerised box office. The cinema continued to operate until September 2002.
It is not clear why the cinema closed, but speculation suggests access to the site was made difficult during redevelopment of the adjacent West Bromwich bus station and building of the public arts centre.
The cinema never reopened, despite plans to do so once the development work was complete and access restored.
In 2006, the ground floor of the building was converted to retail space with clothing chain Peacocks operating as part of two units open on the site. Now just one of the two retail units is still in use.
The proposed block of residential apartments is said to fall under Sandwell Council’s ‘Development Action Plan’ as a new opportunity to develop a range of high quality homes in the area.
Some local residents are already cautious about the application.
Pepe Adrahams said: “Don’t you think we should be building bars, restaurants, nightclubs, and bowling alleys for our youth and bring cash into our town, instead of our youth going to spend their money in Birmingham or Wolverhampton?”
Linda White added: “We don’t need more apartments in the town centre, we need amenities instead.”
Councillor Bawa Singh Dhallu, who represents West Bromwich Central, said: “I am not sure myself of the planning into this redevelopment, but I am definitely in favour of regeneration.
“We had a meeting last night to discuss the redevelopment. No one has put concerns to me yet, but I would be happy to speak on their behalf if they so wished to.”
