In 2016 the property was sold to the Liverpool-based hospitality company Signature Living, which began a programme of restoration and conversion of the building into a hotel.
Once fully completed the hotel will host 146 bedrooms, an on-site restaurant and bar, spa, gym, learning zone, conference rooms and the Grand Hall wedding venue.
Built to provide a dedicated location for merchants and traders to sell coal, it followed construction of buildings of a similar function in London, Liverpool and Manchester.
Paired Corinthian columns, an oak balcony, and rich wood panelling adorn the trading hall, which was reconstructed by Edwin Seward in 1911.
The Exchange Hall was used with great regularity during this period as a filming location for various parts of the entertainment industry, for example the BBC drama Bevan.
The venue hosted acts such as the Arctic Monkeys, Manic Street Preachers, Ocean Colour Scene, Stereophonics, Van Morrison and Biffy Clyro.
It then became the subject of efforts to preserve the historic fabric of the building by the not-for-profit organisation Save the Coal Exchange Limited.
[9] In February 2015, Welsh Government Economy Minister Edwina Hart commissioned a feasibility study into future re-use of the building.
In June 2017, the BBC broadcast a documentary entitled Saving The Coal Exchange, which looked at the development of the building into a hotel.
Once fully completed the hotel will host 146 bedrooms, an on-site restaurant and bar, spa, gym, learning zone, conference rooms and the Grand Hall wedding venue.
The entrance is guarded by a pair of fluted Corinthian columns, and topped by a floral relief in a triangular pediment surmounted by Royal Arms.
On the north east corner, steps lead up to a projecting porch which housed Barclays Bank, resident here since building opened.
[1] The interior retains an entrance hall with a Jacobethan style moulded plaster ceiling, panelled walls, and woodblock and inlay floor.
The central Coal and Shipping Hall dominates the building, surrounded by galleried tiers, in Jacobethan style dark wood.