The Littlewoods building on Edge Lane is one of Liverpool's most iconic landmarks.
Opened in 1938, the art deco structure became symbolic of Littlewood’s roaring success and ever growing retail empire.
But more recently its ever deteriorating structure has reflected the challenges of a dramatically changing consumer landscape.
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Once home to the Littlewoods pools operation run by one of the largest family run businesses in Britain, the building has lain dormant for the best part of the last two decades and wears clear stresses and strains of its abandonment - accentuated by a fire in 2018.
There have however been rays of hope for the building over the course of the last decade.
Plans to convert the building into a film studio have gained momentum over the last few years and now Liverpool City Council is aiming to drive forward one of its most ambitious regeneration projects to date.
The plans, signed off by Cabinet in December, will see £70m put forward to build 85,000sqft of studio and ancillary space.
The building would also be redesigned to feature educational and flexible employment space for those working in the creative industries.
It is hoped the wider project will contribute to creating 4,000 jobs.
The building’s current owners, Capital & Centric, will remain part of the project and act as the lead developers.
When the plans were signed off in December, it was announced that critical remediation works were in the pipelines for early 2022.
However concerns were raised about the financial viability of the project and its high risk nature.
This resulted in the project going before the city council’s audit and scrutiny committee in January, but Capital & Centric have now confirmed that the plans are still moving forward.
This entails the finalisation of legal agreements with a view to then advertising the tender for remediation works, which Capital & Centric are hopeful can begin later this year.
The overall project is set to be approached in two halves.
The first will see the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority put £8m towards the remediation works, taken from a wider £17m funding package previously agreed.
The remediation and first phase of the development will be overseen by Capital & Centric.
Phase one works are expected to take approximately a year.
For phase two to proceed a fully-costed funding package is required, with the council and combined authority projecting to both invest £12m and a commercial lender being sought for the balance.
The scheme, which would be subject to planning permission, already has two proposed major anchor tenants – Twickenham Studios and Liverpool John Moores University.
It is hoped that the large-scale project will reaffirm Liverpool’s status as the Hollywood of the north.
The city is currently the second most filmed location outside of London and the Liverpool Film Office, one of the oldest of its kind, was able to generate upward of £18m for the city region's economy throughout 2021.
The Film Office’s new ‘blank canvas’ studios situated next to the Littlewoods Building, The Depot, opened in October and are set to further enhance Liverpool’s film and TV offer.
Speaking about the current progress of the project, Adam Higgins, co-founder at Capital & Centric said: “Following the cabinet approval at the end of last year, we’re powering ahead with signing all the legal agreements. This will trigger us going out to tender for the remediation works, which we’re expecting to start before the end of the year.
“This will become one of the biggest film and television complexes in the UK. We’ve already signed up the UK’s oldest film studios Twickenham Studios, who are taking 85,000 sq ft for their new studios, and education partner Liverpool John Moores University as anchor tenants.
"There’ll be an entire film and TV ecosystem created as part of the project with a further 90,000 sq ft for things like post production, visual effects, video game production and more, which we’ll be looking to let as construction progresses.
“We’re working in partnership with Liverpool City Region Combined Authority and Liverpool City Council to deliver this hugely important £70m regeneration project, that will create almost 4,000 jobs and cement Liverpool’s position on the global stage as a hub for filming and production.”
