Wolverhampton secures £2.6bn worth of city living projects
£2.6bn of investment is set to be made into Wolverhampton city living projects, creating 6,500 new homes and generating 4,000 jobs.
Cllr Stephen Simkins, Leader of the City of Wolverhampton Council revealed these figures at the City Centre Living Showcase at The Molineux Stadium alongside developers.
The plans for Wolverhampton will boost the city’s economy by £80m per year and include:
- Capital&Centric’s regeneration of the five acre St George’s site into 400 mixed tenure homes.
- Canalside South – a 17-acre £150m waterfront development by Wavensmere Homes on the former British Steel site will include 520 homes and the redevelopment of disused railway arches into 7,000 sq ft of commercial space.
- The English Cities Fund (ECF), the JV between Muse, Legal & General and Homes England will develop City Centre West – the largest regeneration opportunity in the city centre worth £50m, with plans to deliver 1,000 homes alongside leisure, retail, and public spaces.
- Placefirst will start work on 366 new homes and commercial space in the Canalside Quarter.
- The former Sunbeam car and motorcycle factory is being transformed into 171 flats by developer Paragon Living, and is the first scheme ever to give all residents Sky Glass TV.
Cllr Simkins said: “All successful and vibrant city centres have one thing in common – they have city centre living and that is at the heart of what we need to do to change Wolverhampton.
“These plans will be massive in driving the transformation of the city centre, making this city centre a great place to live, learn, work and visit and it’s very important that we do capture that visitor economy”.
Professor Ebrahim Adia, the new Vice Chancellor of the University of Wolverhampton also revealed ambitions to develop student schemes to accommodate 6,000 extra overseas students.
He said: “There’s a question of how we master the university’s accommodation offering so that it fits into the wider city and its infrastructure and the architecture. I’m particularly keen on exploring a student village so there’s a real opportunity here for the university to work with the council”.
Whilst City Centre Living was the conference’s focus, the council presented its proposals to cement Wolverhampton as an entertainment destination to encourage people to live there.
The regeneration of The Civic in The Halls has attracted 100,000 visitors to date and boosted the local economy by at least £10m per year.
Plans have recently been submitted for a £6m food, entertainment and events venue in the west of Wolverhampton’s city centre.Following the demolition of derelict shops on Cleveland Street last year, the land has been earmarked for ‘Bell Works’ – a nod to the Victorian ironmonger and manufacturer that once existed here.
Independent commercial operator, PDJ Management (PDJ), has been selected as the successful bidder which already runs successful cinemas in Worthing (The Dome Cinema), Romford (Premiere Cinema), Kings Lynn (The Majestic Cinema) and Lytham St Annes (Island Cinema) and has put forward a proposal to convert the 6,625 sq ft council-owned space from an out-dated two-screen venue to a newly refurbished four-screen cinema.
The council and PDJ will be making a £2m joint investment in the refurbishment and fit-out programme and entering into a 30-year lease, while the new-look venue is predicted to attract up to 130,000 visitors a year to the city centre and boost the local economy by half-a-million-pounds annually, with three permanent and 20 to 25 part-time jobs created.
And pub and hotel chain, Wetherspoons has submitted a revised planning application to add a new storey and a further 25 hotel rooms to The Moon Under Water pub in the city centre.The council granted approval in September for its £15m redevelopment, which includes a heritage centre in the basement, a 71-bedroom hotel on the first to third floors and various alterations.
Cllr Simkins also said investment from companies such as Chicago-based Fortune Brands at i54, which is developing a 270,000 sq ft facility and bringing 250 jobs to the city is vital, alongside the £20m Green Innovation Corridor, placing Wolverhampton at the forefront of all the green technology.
