Placeshaping
Creative Space has a 15-year track record of planning and implementing place-shaping projects and interim use strategies for public and private sector clients. During this time we’ve seen local areas transformed around projects that we have driven forward.
Hull Fruit Market is an example of how Creative Space can start the long process of adding value to semi-derelict and under-used areas of a city.
Creative Space was appointed by Hull Forward to develop a large scale Meanwhile Use Strategy for The Fruit Market in Hull during Autumn 2009. Following wide ranging research and a large- scale public consultation event, plans to bring a first wave of eleven substantial properties back in to use for creative and cultural end uses were adopted by city partners. A publication was produced by Creative Space to mark the transition of the street from a wholesale market to a new creative industries quarter for the city.
Creative Space was retained to assist in implementing the strategy in Spring 2010. This resulted in a number of creative ventures taking premises on Humber Street as part of the first wave of the strategy. These include a new performing arts venue and bar and a number of other important projects including a gallery, studio space, a sculpture workshop, a jewellery collective, a microbrewery, a visual arts studio space and several others.
Quickly gaining traction, the evident impact that the project had was a key contributor to Hull gaining UK City of Culture status, following which more businesses took up the remaining buildings on the street and there were further improvements to the public realm. What had begun as an interim use project evolved into a permanent creative and leisure destination.
As part of Creative Space’s early work, a business plan and brief was prepared for a large serviced office development to be targeted at digital innovation businesses. This plan was taken up and driven forward by developers, Wykeland and opened in 2015 as C4DI, a leading location for tech business in the North.
Further significant developments continue to be attracted to the Fruit Market, building on the success of this indigenous cluster. This includes more commercial workspace developments alongside residential and leisure in what is now acknowledged as the cultural heart of the city. To date this urban regeneration project has attracted over £80m of investment.
We have similar stories in Leeds South Bank, where we have worked for over 15 years establishing a new quarter for creative & digital workspace in the city in the Round Foundry area once known as Holbeck Urban Village. The success of our work has radically changed local values over time and contributed to attracting new development of such a scale that it will impact of the city centre for decades to come.
In Newcastle upon Tyne, Creative Space created the early vision for Toffee Factory, developed the plans and worked alongside the design team to create a statement workspace for creative & digital that paved the way for The Malings, igloo’s award winning residential development development at the mouth of the Ouseburn Valley. In the city centre, Creative Space was asked to help develop the specification and business model for the first building (now known as The Core) at the ground-breaking Helix development on behalf of the city and its partners. The Creative Space team now manage 17,000 sm of workspace on the site over two Grade-A buildings, The Core and The Lumen.
Ranging from significant meanwhile use projects to the planning and delivery of serviced offices and conventionally let workspace buildings, each of these projects has been of a civic scale and has demonstrably contributed to a long-term change of uses, stimulating new private sector investment and creating new confidence in the viability of these once failing neighbourhoods.
The range of work carried out by Creative Space includes helping to create a new sense of opportunity as well as establishing communities of interest and bringing land and buildings into short and medium-term uses that anticipate longer-term regeneration.
If you’re working on a project to reimagine the future of our northern cities and towns, by creating new destinations and business growth opportunities, we’d like to talk to you so please get in touch.
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