A key tenant has pulled out of plans for a home for start-up businesses in Southport.
Baltic Creative, which was due to be an “anchor tenant” of the town's £1.5m “enterprise arcade” has pulled out of the project, according to a report presented to Sefton Council’s cabinet yesterday, May 25.
The enterpise arcade project involves transforming one of Southport’s oldest buildings, the Crown Buildings into a “purpose build workspace for start-up businesses”, mostly using government funding as part of the wider Southport Town Deal investments.
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The report states the scheme will “reimagine Southport’s Crown Buildings, linked to the Atkinson Arts Centre by way of the ground floor retail units in the Grade II listed Bank Building and alongside the adjacent Cambridge Walks shopping arcade.”
It says the refurbishment will create a total “collaboration space” and a large office for an anchor tenant, with two floors for office workspaces for small to medium size businesses totalling 890 sqm.
Work has yet to begin on the scheme with the tendering process currently “underway” and the council intending work to start in the autumn, with the centre due to open in summer 2024.
According to the cabinet report, the council has now decided to move away from their original plans to have a key anchor tenant with a “head leasehold” and management responsibility for the building after Baltic Creative decided to pull out.
The report states: “The procurement exercise to secure the ‘anchor tenant’ was concluded last summer with Baltic Creative being identified as the preferred tenant and project operator.
“However, the progression of this alternative route to an operating model has been mutually agreed with Baltic Creative, and discussions on this project with them has been concluded.”
As a result the report states that the council is now proposing to run the arcade in-house after feedback that the space was “not a viable business opportunity for the larger known managed workspace operators.”
The council said however that it didn’t have the in-house capacity to “foster and curate building a digital economy eco-system” so is now proposing a similar model that being used at Southport market, where the council retains management of the building but there is an anchor tenants “with additional responsibilities.”
According to the report, there has been interest expressed by “crea-tech industry specialists” with the report stating the council is not expecting to have to subsidise the centre once it opens.
The report, which was agreed by the cabinet, also details an additional £240k required for works on the Crown Buildings which does not fall within the Town Deal funding to deal with “backlog maintenance works” at the buildings to enable the project to proceed.
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