Area-based regeneration: Fruit Market, Hull

Hull Fruit Market is an example of how empty property can kickstart the process of transforming under-occupied areas of a city and over time attract significant private sector investment in neighbouring mixed-use development.

Creative Space Management was appointed by Hull Forward to develop a Meanwhile Use Strategy for The Fruit Market during 2009. This followed on from the local authority acquiring properties in the immediate area for a major development plan which later unexpectedly collapsed due to recession.

Following a soft market-testing event, plans to bring a first wave of eleven properties back in to use for creative and cultural end uses were adopted by city partners.

Creative Space was retained to implement the strategy in Spring 2010. This resulted in several pioneering creative ventures taking premises on Humber Street as part of the first wave of the strategy, including a new performing arts bar / venue, a gallery, two visual arts studio spaces, sculpture workshop, jewellery collective, microbrewery and several others.

Quickly gaining traction, the project was a cornerstone for Hull’s successful UK City of Culture 2017 application, following which a local developer brought investment, more businesses took up the remaining buildings on the street and there were further improvements to public realm. The interim use project evolved into a permanent creative and leisure destination.

Significant private sector developments were triggered in surrounding streets, with local developer Wykeland establishing a creative industries workspace C4DI (based on a business plan developed by Creative Space) and, more recently, major employers relocating to new buildings there. By 2020, over £80m of investment had been attracted to the surrounding streets and 1,000 new jobs generated. The largest office building in the city for 50 years, Arco’s new head office, opened in 2021 employing 600 people.

what our clients say

Image counts in business and since moving to the Technology Centre at AMP our location and facilities have impressed customers and contributed to our rapid growth.

Chris Worrall, Managing Director, Arrow Technical.

Case Studies

Area-based regeneration: Riverside, Sunderland

Riverside Sunderland is an ambitious 15-year transformational plan for the city centre through a new mixed use urban quarter being created on either side of the River Wear. Creative…

Relish Research

Relish Research chose the Round Foundry Media Centre for its first base outside London in April 2012 and, within a year, moved again into larger offices, thanks to a…

SoPost Limited

SoPost Limited was established in 2012 with the aim of developing relationships with existing and new brands to increase their market share through the creation of cloud based infrastructure…