Carmarthen's former Debenhams store will be transformed into a hub to deliver a range of health, wellbeing, learning and cultural services all under one roof.
The venture, which is still in the early development stages, could feature state-of-the-art leisure, culture, and exhibition spaces alongside health and educational facilities, tourist information, customer services and more.
The ambitious plans were first announced in November for a town centre location but the exact whereabouts have been kept firmly under wraps until now.
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The plans were discussed publicly at a board meeting of Hywel Dda University Health Board.
Debenhams was openly talked about as being the chosen site and questions were raised over how long work would take to get it ready for use.
The two-storey unit has been empty since Debenhams closed in May last year, providing yet another blow to the town centre following the recent departures of other stores including River Island, Topshop, Topman, Miss Selfridge, and Fat Face.
It is hoped the Hwb will also become a new publicly-accessible and central home for some of Carmarthenshire’s museum collections, an exhibition space, and a welcome point for visitors to the town.
Carmarthenshire Council is progressing well with talks to secure the building and with funding and key partners all on board and hopes to begin transforming the space by the end of this year with completion expected in spring 2024.
Despite the scale of the plans Hywel Dda's board meeting was told there are concerns about how long the Debenhams building will take to be repurposed and ready for the public.
Health board member Iwan Thomas asked the board's chief executive Steve Moore at the meeting: "In terms of some of the flagship projects such as the Carmarthen hub, which was the former Debenhams building as we know, and the procurement in terms of the purchase for that, could we highlight that in a future meeting in terms of your involvement (talks) with the chief executive of Carmarthenshire Council?
"There are concerns in terms of some of the voluntary sector organisations across the region in terms of the timescales that it will take to repurpose that building. Some of the comments that have come back are that it will take as much time to repurpose it as it did to build it.
"In terms of some of the partnership elements we can look at how we can perhaps fast-track some of those elements with our key strategic partnerships in other partner organisations so that our clients and customers who will utilise that flagship building within our county town here in Carmarthenshire and the rest of the region will benefit sooner rather than later."
In response Mr Moore said: "I think it would be useful to put into the public domain a high-level report about the timescales and what we are trying to achieve there in that building.
"I don't think we have done that in clear terms before and then take the detail through to the relevant committee."
Speaking more widely about the project Mr Moore added: "My understanding is that there is quite a lot of building work to do in order to make the building right in terms of accessibility and so on.
"We can share your ambition to get this done faster than maybe it is in the plan but we need to look at that carefully and bring it back to the board."
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