MCD Developments will transform the site into a £110m mixed-use development, which will be home to a major new employer in the city.

As well as featuring more than 500 apartments, commercial space, leisure facilities and café bars, the Butts will include a new 65,000 sq ft state-of-the-art highly sustainable building which will house the Qualification and Curriculum Authority (QCA), which is moving from London and will employ more than 500 staff on the site.

The arrival of the QCA – which maintains the national curriculum and associated assessments, tests and examinations is a major coup for Coventry City Council which lobbied hard to win this major Government relocation into the city.

MCD is starting work on the QCA building as the first phase of their scheme and the organisation hopes to be operating from its new headquarters during 2009.

As part of the masterplan for the scheme, the former neo-classical college building, which is a landmark in this part of Coventry and dates back to 1935, will be restored. The building will house office, leisure and café facilities with the potential for some apartments.

Birmingham-based MCD will also restore the 650-seat art deco Butts Theatre and creating a piazza around it allowing the theatre the potential to stage outside performances.