Government funding is being made available to help Nottingham City Council deal with the Broadmarsh ‘blight’ in the city centre.
The funding - £7.99 million - will be used to ‘remove blight through demolition of a derelict shopping centre’.
No final decision on what to do with the site has yet been published by the city council.
However a Government document says the work will ‘create the conditions’ for future mixed-use development.
Several different plans have been put forward by various groups, including a park and housing schemes.
Earlier this week, the council announced it would initially be spending £343,500, in part to reopen the walkway, which the council said was a ‘top priority’.
Work on the new shopping centre - which was to include a bowling alley, cinema, bars and restaurants - was halted at the start of the lockdown, and never resumed.
Retail company Intu went into administration, leaving a half-demolished shopping centre at the heart of a £2 billion regeneration area in the south of the city.
However ownership of the site was transferred to the city council by administrators.
Now, Labour-run Nottingham City Council has been awarded just under £8 million by the Government to help move the project forward.
It is part of the Government’s £900 million ‘Getting Building Fund’.
From this fund, the local enterprise partnership, D2N2 has been allocated £44.4 million, of which £7.99 million will go to the Broadmarsh.
The Government document confirming the funding states: “The project will build on previous investment in the city to remove blight through demolition of a derelict shopping centre and enable the connection from the southern entrance to the City (by rail, bus or road) to the city centre.
“It will create the conditions for future mixed-use development to encourage more activity in the city.”
A spokesman for D2N2 said: “I can confirm that the Transforming Nottingham’s Southside scheme was allocated £7.99m from the Getting Building Fund.
“All project funding is subject to the delivery of a full business case which will be considered by the D2N2 Investment and main boards.
Nottingham City Council has been approached for comment.
