A Bristol version of London’s famous ‘BoxPark’ collections of restaurants and bars will be coming to the city - after developers announced they had secured the investment needed to make it happen at last.
The BoxHall development has been pending for years, before being delayed by the pandemic, but now developers Cordwell Leisure Developments said they have secured ‘multi-million funding’ to begin the project.
And they say the BoxHall could be opening as soon as next Easter as they start work to convert the two large dockside warehouses next to Redcliffe Bridge on Welsh Back.
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Cordwell said its BoxHall development will create 100 new jobs in the city, and see the restoration and transformation of the old O&M Shed, which were owned by Bristol City Council and last used years ago by the council’s youth service as a Scrapstore.
The story of the two old dockside warehouses became a huge saga, involving a rejected plan for a new slavery and abolition history museum and visitors centre, and a huge house boat the council ended up spending £1.4 million to buy - just so it could be moved to make way for the restaurant development.
The boat was eventually moved in the autumn of 2020, but nothing has happened on the site since - until Cordwell’s announcement this morning. They said Frontier Development Capital will support Cordwell’s project to turn the old dockside warehouses into BoxHall, the first project of its kind outside of London. There are already Box Park sites in Wembley and in east London, and they see street food restaurants and bars set up, often in temporary units and shipping containers - very much the inspiration for the Wapping Wharf development.
Ironically, Wapping Wharf announced this morning it was clearing away all the temporary restaurants, shops and bars from the shipping containers that have become such a popular destination for Bristol in the past few years, to complete the Wapping Wharf development project.
Round the harbourside in Welsh Back, the BoxHall project would see the first London Box Park project in Bristol, but indoors instead - under the roofs of the two old warehouse buildings.
Boxpark founder and boss Roger Wade admitted it had taken longer than expected to get the project off the ground.
“Whilst our team have been very excited to launch our first BoxHall site in Bristol, planning has taken a little longer than expected with many additional approval stages required to move forward,” he said. “However, we want to reassure the local community that BoxHall Bristol is still coming to the city and we can’t wait to help transform Welsh Back with a new all-day social dining venue featuring a rich and diverse variety of Bristol’s best food, beer and music,” he added.
Cordwell director Tom Wilcox said getting the money in place to do the transformation has been vital. “This finance from Frontier Development Capital enables us to move forward on this exciting scheme in Bristol and deliver a vibrant leisure destination, adding to the city’s already thriving restaurant and dining offering.
“The project is a prime example of how we can create a new legacy for historical buildings and give them a role to play in their cities today. With work due to be underway next month, and a completion in early February with fitting out for opening occurring for Easter next year, we’re looking forward to realising our vision of BoxHall,” he added.
The project has been controversial. Back in 2017 and 2018, the O&M Sheds were identified by a coalition of campaigners as the perfect location to create a museum and visitors’ centre to acknowledge and educate people about Bristol’s role in the transatlantic slave trade and the campaign to abolish it.
And local residents living along Welsh Back backed them, and said it would be a better use for the O&M Sheds than converting them into three restaurants, which was a plan at the time.
With Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees cautious about a slavery museum in Bristol, City Council chiefs decided to go with a restaurant plan and that the warehouses would be sold off.
There were two problems with that, however. The buildings themselves were structurally unsound - huge cracks had appeared in one corner - so would take a lot of money to repair. And no developer who wanted to turn the O&M Sheds into a harbourside restaurant space would do so because there was a large converted barge houseboat, the Ebenhaezer, with mooring rights right in front of the warehouse buildings.
So the council struck a deal that they would get the boat moved, if a private developer would take on the job of fixing the building. The resident living in the houseboat resisted that - and in the end the council spent up to £1.4 million buying the houseboat and the mooring, and moved it 200 yards up the harbour to a new spot close to Bristol Bridge.
Read next:
Campaign to turn new restaurant site into slavery museum instead
Mayor cautious over idea of Bristol slavery museum or memorial
Abolition Shed museum won't happen as sale for pizza bar agreed
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