A former music hall in Oxford has been sold to the Ethical Property Company and will become a home for more than 20 charities.

The old Empire Theatre, in Cowley Road, has been empty since Blackwell Publishing moved to offices at the Oxford Business Park, in Cowley, in 2003.

Blackwell sold the building to developer WE Black, which abandoned plans to build student housing after local opposition.

Under Ethical's plan, it will now house about 150 staff working for different non-profit organisations.

Local business G&D, which already runs café/ice cream parlours in Little Clarendon Street and St Aldate's, is poised to sign a deal to rent space at the front, while agents for WE Black, which owns the two shopfronts, are searching for another 'ethical' retailer.

Jamie Hartzell, of the Ethical Property Company, said: "We're very excited. We're talking to a lot of different voluntary organisations, which are keen to move in."

The company, based in Park End Street, has launched a new £2m share issue to pay the estimated £500,000 costs of the conversion, which will create 14,000sq ft of serviced offices.

It hopes to be among the first tenants of the new building, to be called the Old Music Hall. It would be the company's 13th building, to add to its existing office space in London, Brighton, Bristol, Leeds, Sheffield and Manchester.

Built in 1889, it was a constitutional hall, then became the Empire Theatre of Varieties and, between 1912 and 1938, the Palace Picture House.

Mr Hartzell founded the Ethical Property Company in 1999 to provide reasonably-priced office space for charities and campaign groups.

He said work on the shops was scheduled to finish in mid-August, with the rest of the conversion completed by the end of the year and a new building at the rear, to house nine flats above new offices, early next year.