Cornerhouse to move to new £19m arts centre

MANCHESTER’S art house cinema, the Cornerhouse, is to move from its home on Oxford Road to a new £19m purpose-built venue it will share with the Library Theatre.

Manchester City Council said it hoped the move would help create 10,000 jobs by spearheading investment at First Street, a 20-acre plot a short distance from the cinema’s Oxford Road site off Whitworth Street West.

The building is expected to have up to five cinemas, 6,500 sq ft of contemporary gallery space, a 500-seat theatre and an outdoor performance space as well as a café.

The cost of the scheme is covered by £16m already earmarked for the move of the Library Theatre, which was in the basement of Central Library, with £3m coming from third party contributions and future capital receipts. It is expected to open in 2014.

There was no word on what will happen to the existing three-screen Cornerhouse buildings. Last year chief executive Dave Moutrey told TheBusinessDesk the venue was seeking to curb costs and raise more of its own income in anticipation of funding cuts.

Latest filed accounts for the year to March for the Greater Manchester Arts Centre, the charity that runs the cinema, show it costs £2.5m to run and had a deficit of £330,000.

In a statement the council said the scheme would “bring the area to life” through increased footfall and by attracting other leisure and retail investment. It hopes to see the development of around 1.25m sq ft of commercial floorspace at First Street.

Council leader Sir Richard Leese said: “These highly imaginative proposals will be a win-win for Manchester. They support existing jobs and will help attract others to this important gateway site. In the aftermath of the recession and facing unprecedented public sector cuts this is exactly the sort of scheme we need to get people into work, get our economy moving even faster, and show the world that Manchester is still an ambitious city still on the up.”

Mr Moutrey said: “This is a fantastic opportunity to create a unique, audience-focused centre for the arts and we are thrilled to be at the heart of it. The new facility will give us space to grow, to increase our audience and widen access to contemporary visual art and cinema. We’ll be able to create more opportunities for community involvement and to expand our role as a digitally connected producer.”