Drive along the Southam Road in Banbury and you can’t miss the Art Deco splendour of the Grade II listed SAPA Profiles Building. Once housing the offices of the Northern Aluminium Company on a site that employed 3000 people, the building has lain empty since 2008.
According to a report in the Banbury Guardian, Honeydew Developments Ltd. have submitted a proposal to turn the Grade II listed office building into a hotel and spa complex.
Few people will have seen the – for its time – innovative spiral staircase just inside the main entryway, but the development is hoping to retain the feature along with the site’s front gates. The building was designed in 1936 by Oxfordshire architect Gilbert Gardner and made extensive use of a new material: aluminium.
During the Second World War, the Northern Aluminium Company manufactured parts for aircraft, including the Spitfire, but as production in the UK declined, so did the Southam Road site.
The development – an 80-bedroom hotel and adjacent banqueting suite, hotel, and spa complex – would save the site and the Art Deco building from total decline and the wrecking ball.
