City council to sign £48m deal to advance performance venue

A £48m plan to bring forward a 3,500 perfomance venue in Derby could be sealed as early as next week.

Derby City Council councillors will be asked to rubberstamp a plan for a fixed-price deal with St James Securities, which will deliver the scheme, in the Becketwell area of the city centre.

The new entertainment and conference venue will be on the site of the former Pink Coconut nightclub.

The city council says over 200 new local jobs are expected to be created with the scheme set to generate more than £10m per year for the area.

Last July, Paul Morris, director of St James Securities, said: “We are tremendously excited to be working with Derby City Council on this ambitious scheme, which is set to bring an outstanding, modern performance venue to the city.

“We strongly believe that a new purpose-built city centre venue is the right way to deliver a new performance venue for Derby and are confident that the best location for that venue is as a key part of the Becketwell scheme.

“Once the successful operator has been selected, they will help to inform the design, capacity and layout of the building and the mix of popular and mainstream shows, performances and events.

“We have created a great scheme which will fill a significant gap in the city cultural landscape. Our flexible venue will cater for major music and comedy acts as well as a strong programme of theatre content. The conference and events centre will support the growth of the business community in the region.

“The performance venue is set to ‘turbocharge’ the entire Becketwell scheme, allowing us to bring forward a new multi-storey car park and hotel and will be key to the future reinvigoration and repositioning of Derby city centre.

“We have pulled together a very experienced team who have a long track record in delivering similar projects. The team will be led by IPW who have been involved in similar arena developments including Leeds, Hull, Swansea, Battersea, York, Glasgow, Bradford, Gateshead, Copenhagen, Singapore and Abu Dhabi.”

The project will be delivered by St James Securities at a fixed priced to the Council with the developer securing a national operator as tenant for at least 25 years, reducing the financial risk to the Council. The development team at St James Securities says it has already had “strong” interest shown from “leading operators”.