One of Bradford’s most prominent commercial buildings is set to be given a new lease of life in a £7 million project to convert it from empty offices into accommodation for 200 students.

FreshStart Living, a Salford-based property developer, has agreed to buy the former Provident Financial head office, Colonnade, on Sunbridge Road, subject to gaining planning permission from Bradford Council.

The project will be the company’s first foray across the Pennines.

FreshStart plans to create 200 en-suite student bedrooms in the nine-storey 1960s building. Each floor will have 24 student rooms, four kitchens and communal areas, with a further eight rooms on the ground floor.

It plans to sell the rooms, priced from £27,500 each, to property investors and will act as the managing agent, collecting rents of £80 to £85 a week.

Local contractors will be used on the conversion and work is expected to start on site in January 2012 and be completed within three months.

Provident vacated the building last September and opened a new head office in the £50 million Southgate development on Thornton Road, where it employs 700 staff and is creating a further 250 jobs at a new call centre.

Stuart Cook, acquisitions manager at FreshStart Living, said: “FreshStart is expanding its portfolio of student accommodation and we have further acquisitions to announce in the coming weeks.

“Student property is an asset class that rarely becomes available to individual investors and student rentals have remained robust with a recorded yearly growth of five per cent over the past six years.”

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