Odeon axed as cinema goes underground

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Under the plans, approved by Westminster council last night, the Odeon West End would be knocked down and replaced with a nine-storey block containing a hotel, flats and four restaurants.

The number of seats in the new auditoriums will be slashed from 832 to 440 in one and 500 to 200 in the other but will be larger and more luxurious. Currently the cinema is used for small film premieres and hosts the BFI London Film Festival.

The proposals are part of an £18.5million regeneration of the south-west corner of Leicester Square. They include three street-level restaurants, a rooftop restaurant and flats. The 245-bedroom hotel would occupy the first to fifth floors.

The building has been designed to reduce carbon emissions and will have solar panels on the roof. Designers Make have drawn up plans for a curved layout with a frontage of mirror finished stainless steel. The centrepiece will be a 657-foot granite "ribbon" seat where some of the square's 250,000 daily visitors could rest.

Matt White, of Make, said: "We have combined a distinctive presence on the square with an appreciation of the qualities of the surrounding area."

The Odeon was built in 1930 as The Leicester Square Theatre, a name it retained until 1988. It was modernised in 1968 with a blander shell, and in 1988 was renamed the Odeon West End.

Work is due to begin next summer.