AMBITIOUS plans for a ten-storey mixed retail and residential block at Bournemouth’s Odeon Cinema have been unveiled.

Libra Homes wants to redevelop the site into 84 apartments, with additional retail space on the ground and first floors.

These plans, which went on display for Westover Road businesses and stakeholders yesterday, show that the cinema’s listed facade will be retained and incorporated in the new building.

Project architect Richard Adams told the Daily Echo: “It is a fine building, you wouldn’t want to lose that, it is a beautiful frontage.”

Speaking at the exhibition at the Bournemouth International Centre, Mr Adams explained: “There will be retail space on the ground floor, and access to the apartments above off Westover Road.

“The additional first floor retail space will be ideal for a restaurant facility - the idea is that people will be sitting within the existing arches.

“Overall we are talking the ground floor plus nine floors - six floors on top of the existing building.”

Odeon Cinemas, which owned both the Odeon and ABC sites, sold the building for £3.8million in 2015, signalling the end of film-going on Westover Road for more than 90 years.

The company intends to move to Exeter Road’s BH2 leisure complex when it opens in 2017.

As terms of the sale, Odeon Cinemas made it clear neither Westover Road sites could not be retained for cinema usage.

The ABC site - also purchased by Libra Homes - looks likely to be redeveloped into some sort of residential building at a future date.

Proposals for the Odeon building are in their consultation stage at the moment.

An official planning application is yet to be submitted.

When the Odeon opened as the Regent in 1929, it was only the second purpose-built ‘super cinema’ in Britain, with a huge auditorium seating 2,300. It became the Gaumont in 1949 and was later used for live shows, including a week of the Beatles in 1963.

It was converted to two auditoriums in 1969, with Gaumont 1 boasting a 75ft curved Cinerama screen.

Police had to marshal the queues when Star Wars opened on both screens at once in February 1978.

It was rebranded the Odeon in 1986.