A prime redevelopment site is set to open up in the heart of Felixstowe seafront following the sale of one of the resort’s largest former hotels.

The North Sea Hotel in Sea Road has been an eyesore for nearly two decades, boarded up and unused.

Last month Mayor of Felixstowe Graham Newman labelled it “an absolute scab on our seafront”.

Now the property – last used as a hotel in the 1990s and as a nightclub for a while after that – has been sold to Hertfordshire-based Ponders End Investments PLC (PEI).

It has been on the market for £450,000 and leisure property specialist Fleurets said “a price close to this was achieved” for the building.

But while experts at Suffolk Coastal identified the former hotel as having “a significant opportunity for its full refurbishment and restoration” while agreeing to class its surroundings as a conservation area, renovation seems highly unlikely.

Jon Bourn, project director of PEI, said: “We are looking forward to the opportunity of working with Suffolk Coastal District Council and hopefully local contractors and trades, to identify a viable scheme for redeveloping this redundant site and rejuvenating this section of the seafront for the benefit of all and for future generations.

“I believe the correct project will underpin further future investment in the immediate area and Felixstowe as a whole.”

The property is situated close to the pier – which is to be rebuilt – and leisure centre and previously plans have been submitted to Suffolk Coastal to demolish the North Sea to provide 5,000sq ft for a restaurant and shops on the ground floor, with some 15,000sq ft of flats, probably 14 to 15 apartments, on three or four storeys above.

New plans for the building, which back in 1913 was the headquarters of the Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment at Felixstowe Air Station, are being drawn up and likely to be submitted for approval in the new year.