Groves House to be sold to Norstar Real Estates

City of York Council’s ruling executive will next week consider 11 bids for Grove House in Penley’s Grove Street.

Officials have advised councillors to approve a bid from Norstar Real Estates, which wants to convert the existing building into flats, including some affordable homes.

The building was one of the council’s older people’s homes until both it and the Acomb home Oakhaven closed earlier this year, as part of a major overhaul of older people’s accommodation in the city.

A council spokeswoman said: “The site is both financially valuable and strategically important, lying just outside the city walls in a largely residential area.”

Papers which will be presented to the councillors next week show that Norstar’s bid of £1.6 million was the highest of all the eleven bids received by the council.

Other developers wanted to build student accommodation on the site, sheltered housing or affordable homes, and one of the bids was for a community-led housing project.

Proceeds from the sale will go towards the ongoing older person’s accommodation programme, and the report to councillors says the money will be a valuable boost the project, adding to the £1.8 million earned from the sale of Oliver House, in Bishophill, to retirement housing specialist McCarthy and Stone.

Meanwhile, Oakhaven is being converted into temporary accommodation for homeless people while the existing hostel at Ordnance Lane is rebuilt, and eventually managers at the city council want the Acomb site to be redeveloped into sheltered or extra care housing for older people.

In July the council revealed that two of its remaining five care homes - Woolnough House, Haxby Hall, Morrell House, Willow House and Windsor House - would close within a year.