Proposals have been submitted to Southend Council this week to see the old bank, on the Broadway, turned into three flats while the former Boni-Vee hardware shop, on Leigh Road, could become one flat.
The old Barclays bank previously had plans rejected by Southend Council which would have seen it transformed into a coffee shop with an Airbnb rental above, before plans were also rejected for it to become seven flats.
Mehmed Hassan, who also owns the Sand Bar, Leigh Food Shack, and Baboush is behind the proposals to bring the building back into use.
The former Boni-Vee, which moved last year to London Road, is to be turned into one flat by applicant Mr T Harrison-Moore.
Leigh green councillor, Richard Longstaff, believes that there is a benefit to having homes above shops around the Broadway and Leigh Road.
He said: “It is quite an appropriate place, if you look at the development model in Europe you see residential above active shop frontages, what we need is people and footfall.
“The more people that are living in and around active shop fronts, the more it brings to the economy and to the locality and it increases footfall.
“If people are living above it, they are in that community, it can only be good for the business and the economy.”
Mr Longstaff added that there is a desperate shortage of homes in Southend and that the council are “on a mission to build residential accommodation.”
He said: “It is better footfall to the retail of the place in the case of Boni-Vee, it is shame that it closed and I have endorsed them before and used the shop.”
He added that the decision to downscale plans for the old Barclays block was “understandable”, as concerns had been raised around the idea of “cramming too many flats in.”
He said: “The issue there was proximity to other residential property and likewise with cramming too many flats in, which could create social issues.”